


Beer and Skittles

by Vrunka



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Dirty Talk, Gore, Hand Jobs, Incest discussion, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Medicinal Drug Use, Mentions of minors in sexual situations, Miscommunication, Past Shimadacest, Period-Typical Homophobia, Racial slurs, Rimming, Violence, Voyeurism, Wild West AU, art prompt, mentions of shimadacest, old time-y race references?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 18:04:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 44,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8170870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vrunka/pseuds/Vrunka
Summary: McCree is a bartender happily going about his day, not at all haunted by the loss of his hand and his best friend. And life is, as they say, all beer and skittles. The arrival of a new mysterious stranger at his bar is going to change all that.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the amazing featheredclaw's art on tumblr (post here http://featheredclaw.tumblr.com/post/150656148896/a-different-kind-of-room-service-3rd-commission)
> 
> There was another post floating around requesting Fic and...stuff happened? Hey guys guess I'm back suffering in McHell and mcfreakin loving it or whatever. 
> 
> Hope I tagged all that right, any additonal tags needed let me know. Also hope the art link works, I'm old I dunno how this internet stuff works.
> 
> And please please please send your love to the artist that inspired this trash. Their work is so much better than my writing.

It's not that McCree has never seen an Oriental before. He has, worked a stint with the rail line before things went south. So he's seen plenty of them.

But this man.

This man is different.

Those ones, the chinamen working the rail line, hollow-eyed and gaunt. Starving. Over-worked. Miserable. McCree had looked at them and felt nothing but pity. A passing sort of disgust.

But this man.

This man is dignified. Sitting at the bar with his arms crossed and his hair up. In a suit of all things. Vest and bolo tie. Real cufflinks on his wrists--real gold, McCree figures, assuming his gut hasn't departed with his hand.

Absurdly, McCree thinks of Genji.

"What can I get you, partner?" McCree asks, finally. Working out of his mental tangent. The man glances down the bar at him. High cheekbones. Arched brows. Trimmed facial hair. The man's mouth is moving, but McCree has missed the words. Too caught up in the details, the quiet lilt of the man's voice. Not as worked out of it as he'd thought maybe.

McCree lays the glass he had been cleaning down and approaches, leans over the bar. The man's hair is shiny and sleek, the ponytail too high on his head for a hat. Not like the other rough-and-tumble patrons who stumble through McCree's little saloon.

This man is different.

"Sorry," McCree says, grinning. "Didn't quite catch that, darlin'."

The man doesn't smile, not quite, but the corners of his mouth tug upward just the slightest. He only glances at McCree's mismatched hands, wood and metal, flesh and blood, before meeting McCree's gaze.

"I asked if you had anything on tap not piss-water swill," the man says, slowly, accent lighting along McCree's brain like a brand. 

The words take a second longer to register, but when they do, McCree smiles wider. Teeth catching on his bottom lip. "Tap's shit," he admits, tapping the fingers of his prosthetic against the bar. Drawing the man's gaze back down to it. Click, click, click. "Gotta mean tanglefoot, pretty cheap. Though, dressed the way you are, maybe cheap ain't the problem."

The man looks up at that. "You're staring," he says, mildly. Defensive regardless. Just a touch.

"Don't get many of your folk out here."

"My folk?"

"Chinamen."

"I am not Chinese." The man says. And McCree finds his interest further piqued. Genji again. The parallel is uncanny.

"Where you from then?"

"It's your business?" the man asks, sharper now. Annoyed edge slipping along his words. "Here I thought barman's business was to serve liquor."

"Just bein' friendly," McCree stresses, grinning. Eager to undo the damage done. "Interested is all. Curious."

The man rolls his shoulders. "I will take the tangled foot," he says, "and I am from Japan." Of course he is. McCree runs his hand through his hair, sighs slightly.

"Far from home." McCree turns back to the bottles he has on display. Looks them over carefully, pulls one down. Fishes two glasses from under the bar. "Cactus wine," he says, pouring. "Better stuff. Cut the tanglefoot with gun powder. Shit'll kill you faster than rotgut."

The man tips his head, accepts the glass when it is shoved across to him. Throws his head back and swallows it down. No sipping. No savoring. McCree appreciates it, does the same to the finger he's poured himself.

The tequila burns like fire in his throat, but the Japanese man isn't coughing it all back up and McCree is determined not to look more like a fool than he already has. He smacks his fist against his chest, clears his throat. Pours them each another swallow.

"Name's McCree," he offers. The man spins the glass of cactus juice between his palms. Doesn't respond. "So what brings you here?" McCree asks when the man has drank down his second glass.

"Wanted a drink," the man says, not answering McCree's real question. But he's still doing that half-smile thing, the corners of his mouth working against the innocence of his answer. He's doing it on purpose. Enjoying it.

McCree tops them off again, drinks his before the Japanese man can. "Lemme guess then," he says, already feeling the liquor. Not too much, not a bad amount, but a slight echo in his head, a looseness in his joints. "Fixed hair, nice suit, gold on your cuffs and that pocket watch if I'm not mistaken. Not traveling by horse, sittin' too straight for that, not dusty enough. Too put together." He trails off. As if in admission, the man tosses the cactus juice back. "What's your name?"

The man's eyes narrow. Tongue sliding along his lower lip before he speaks. "Hanzo," he says, shoving the glass across the bar. "I'll take another."

"Hanzo," McCree repeats, emptying the bottle into his cup, passing it back. "You a business man, Hanzo."

"I am here on business."

"Here," McCree asks, eyebrows raised.

Hanzo drinks. "Here," he says. A broad gesture, sweeping. "Santa Fe."

"Ahh." McCree says. He turns back to the bottles, touches a few before settling on one. He places the unmarked bottle in front of Hanzo, watches the man inspect it.

"This is..."

"My own brew. Whiskey, cloves, pinch a brown sugar and cinnamon," McCree lets Hanzo pour it, inspect it. "Don't have a name yet. Haven't let anyone else try it." This is a lie. "Was thinking maybe something powerful sounding. Dragon breath. Dragon fire."

Hanzo's eyes linger on him. He lifts the liquor to his lips. Sips it. Savors. He coughs, twice, abrupt little motions into his fist. "Dragon fire..." He says. It doesn't seem like a question.

"What's your business here?"

"In town?"

"Here."

"I wanted a drink."

"Bullshit, partner." The coincidences are too numerous.

Hanzo pours himself another glass without asking. It had been Genji's idea, the name, the cinnamon. Genji's influence.

"I need a room," Hanzo says around the rim of his glass.

"Got rooms at the cat house next door. Fancy man like you can afford it just fine. Company too, if you're interested. Other distractions."

"I'm not interested in cats," Hanzo says. "I'm here to..." he cuts himself off with a defiant swig of the liquor. "A room. We can discuss the matter privately."

McCree, despite himself, is still interested. The stump of his elbow, cradled in the seam of his mechanical arm, throbs. A warning.

This man is different.

"Saloon gets busy round six," McCree says, collecting Hanzo's glass. Wiping the inside down and tucking it under the counter with the others.

Hanzo doesn't consult his watch. "My bags..."

"You ain't staying yet," McCree says. "They can stay on the stage coach you rode in on."

Hanzo nods once. Pulls a gold cigarette case out of the pocket of his vest. Crisp bills. American money. He hands McCree a cigarillo as well. Lights one for himself.

McCree hates himself for watching Hanzo's wrist, admiring the curl of his fingers. The arch of his neck. The attraction was instantaneous. Inexplicable. Inevitable. Coincidences, coincidences.

"Lead the way," Hanzo says, gesturing with the cigarette. McCree grabs a bottle of beer from behind the counter, stalks toward the stairs. He's puffing on the cigarette too aggressively, not really even drawing the smoke into his lungs. Rushing through it.

He picks the first room on the landing, holds the door open so Hanzo can enter. Hanzo is shorter than him, the top of his head coming to McCree's chin. McCree loosens his tie. Crosses to the little trolley bar he uses occasionally for room service calls. He puts the cigarette out on the silver surface next to where he's sitting with a vicious little jab.

"So we got privacy," he says, a little more hostile than he intends, "wanna tell me what you want here, Hanzo?"

"Genji never said you were impatient," Hanzo says. He's sitting on the bed. His hair is down. McCree isn't sure how he missed that. The yellow ribbon that had kept it up is wrapped around Hanzo's fist.

"Genji never told me he had a keeper."

Hanzo snorts, chuckles. It's undignified, surprising. McCree's fingers tighten around the beer bottle he's brought up.

"Boss then, whatever." McCree says, frowning. Hanzo is smiling, unguarded this time. Full and lovely.

"I am his brother." Of course he is. McCree pops the top off the first bottle, drinks deeply. "And you, according to the letters I have, are his closest friend."

It's McCree's turn to chuckle. A mirthless bubble of sound. "Been a long god damn time since I coulda been considered that."

Hanzo sheds his vest. Folds it, places it on the bed. He is nodding. "Then you know my problem already," Hanzo says.

"I don't know where he is."

"But you did, once."

"It's been a long time."

Hanzo is unbuttoning his shirt. McCree doesn't know if it's a threat or something else. The pale expanse of Hanzo's chest, revealed with every undone button. He's thicker than his brother, not as lithe, but well-muscled.

"You are staring again," Hanzo admonishes, lightly.

"What are you doing?" McCree asks.

Hanzo has a tattoo on one arm. Scales and lines. Color ink.

"Is this a scare tactic," McCree asks, taking another swig off his beer. Bracing himself for it.

"Keeping blood off my clothes?" Hanzo asks. It sounds like he's laughing again. He stands up. "This is not a threat," he says, "you can leave, if you want." He is standing in front of McCree now, McCree tilting his head back, keeping eye contact.

"The Pinkerton's will not help me. Not the way I need," Hanzo says. "And Genji said you had your weaknesses." His fingers are touching McCree's prosthetic wrist, McCree can feel the pressure. A sixth sense of his missing arm.

"What are you doing?" He asks again, helpless. Hanzo's fingers slide up to the bottle, apply just enough pressure to tip it in McCree's grasp. His other hand is against McCree's chest, thumb stroking his tie.

"I'm..." Hanzo looks down at the beer, the liquid sloshes at the lip, threatening, "providing you with some incentive, Jesse McCree."

And then he is kissing him and the beer is spilling, the grip on his tie tightening keeping McCree from pulling too far away.

It isn't happening. It can't be happening.

But the bottle is slipping from McCree's fingers, running up the length of Hanzo's arm to his neck. His other hand is in Hanzo's hair, tangling.

It's different.

It's been so long.

McCree sighs when Hanzo pulls away. Breathes into the space between them. When Hanzo moves back in, it's open-mouthed, slotting their lips together. Hanzo's tongue tastes like whiskey. McCree stands through the kiss, clutches Hanzo to him.

"I never did this with your brother," he says when they part for air, Hanzo's fingers twisting in the fabric of McCree's vest.

"But you wanted to," Hanzo says, he's walking them backwards, away from the cart. His grip on McCree's back keeping McCree close.

"I never..."

"You let him watch you fuck those men," Hanzo says, whispering against McCree's ear. Lips dragging through McCree's facial hair, along his cheek. "And you watched him watching you."

McCree knows his face is red. A full-bodied blush. Hanzo's knees hit the back of the bed and the two of them tumble onto it. Hanzo's legs spreading, McCree wedged between his thighs.

"But why're you..."

Hanzo cuts him off, sealing their lips together again. Fucking his tongue into McCree's mouth as his hips press up and up. The thin fabric of their trousers do little to block the heat of Hanzo's erection. The shaming, undeniable press of McCree's. He ruts back against Hanzo, unconsciously. Whining into Hanzo's mouth.

"You want me, Jesse McCree?"

God damn him. McCree is panting against his neck, hips rolling against Hanzo's. "God...yes, Hanzo. Christ."

"And you will help me find my brother?"

Offering himself up. A sacrifice. Deeply meaningful.

McCree goes cold all over.

A business arrangement. A deal.

McCree rolls off, ignoring the small noise of protest Hanzo makes as he goes.

"I have to," he starts, runs his flesh hand through his hair. His wood and chrome one lies in his lap like an accusation. "Clean...up downstairs. People are...I can't reopen like that." He says.

Hanzo is a cold presence at his shoulder.

"You will not help?"

God damn him. God damn him.

"Get your shit," McCree says, biting his lip. Damning himself and Genji. "Room's on the house...just don't. Don't ask me again."

"McCree..."

"I mean it. We can...we'll talk," he swallows, "later..." Hanzo's hand touches his shoulder blade and McCree recoils from the contact.

Hanzo says nothing. His hand leaves McCree's shoulder.

"I just...it's a lot to drop on a fellow. And I...I gotta work. Tonight. Later," once he's sorted through the hurt that Hanzo's offer has left him with, the old wounds ripped open so keenly.

And he's leaving. He has to.

It's different, it's worse and McCree can't deal with that.


	2. Chapter 2

'The Pinkerton's will not help me.'

That was what he had said.

'The Pinkerton's will not help me.'

Well McCree can sympathize there. Been nearly 15 years, but the word Pinkerton still makes the goose-flesh crawl along McCree's skin. A tight, hollow feeling in the back of his throat. Panic.

It's not that the wanted posters even look like him anymore. McCree has filled out, full beard now. Fucking wooden arm. Times change, people change. He hasn't been into a bounty office in a long time. There's a good chance he and Genji don't even have posters anymore.

Genji's drawing had never looked very much like him anyway.

McCree sighs. Business is slow tonight, only three cow men sitting slumped over at his bar, the owner of the general store over in the seat by the window.

Santa Fe doesn't have the attraction it used to. There's gold in California, they say. Gold in Alaska. Gold in Montana and isn't it just such an easy fucking job, right down the rail line and back, boys.

McCree tightens his prosthetic into a fist. He'd put all this behind him. He really had. He'd been over it, done with the whole deal. Gone straight.

And now Hanzo is here.

Bringing it all back up.

He'd helped Hanzo get his stuff upstairs, though there had been surprisingly little to carry. Two suitcases and a wrapped parcel. Hanzo had not volunteered the contents of the package. McCree had not asked.

They hadn't spoken since McCree's dismissal earlier. Not real words at least. Hanzo had thanked him, overly formal in his buttoned up shirt and fucking bolo tie. He hadn't been back downstairs to the bar since.

"Yer quiet tonight," one of the cow men says. Glorified ranch hand. McCree has worked with real cowboys before, was nearly one himself; these drunkard sons of bitches don't deserve the title.

"Wasn't aware I had some sorta quota to fill with small talk," McCree answers back, frowning. He would attribute his bad mood to Hanzo's sudden appearance but it's more than just that.

Hanzo's tongue in his mouth, Hanzo's breath against his cheek.

Under all of his thoughts is the running litany of that exchange.

'Do you want me, Jesse McCree?'

At first sight. And it's sad, pathetic, that McCree is still thinking about it. That McCree should even consider sinking so low as to take such a base proposition.

He should be a better person.

He's supposed to be a better person.

He should be helping find Genji because Genji was his friend once, because it's the right thing to do, because the Pinkerton's won't do it. But Hanzo had offered his body as commission and McCree is still fucking thinking about it.

"Who the fuck is that?" One of the cow men asks, voice pitched just loud enough to be overheard by McCree, to pull him out of the quiet contemplation he's fallen into again.

McCree looks up, follows the men at the bars' gazes over toward the stairs. And there is Hanzo. Standing in the doorway, one hand braced on the wood. He's still in his button-down, though no tie. His sleeves are rolled to his elbows. No cufflinks, McCree thinks that might be a good thing.

The men at the bar are stirring. Sitting up straighter. Taking notice. McCree has seen this before. The look the men share, a glint in the eye. Coyotes, scavengers, scrappy, mangy fighters who think they have something to prove with every Other that dares to wander into the saloon.

The last time it had been an Apache. Just a kid, really, separated from his people by some juvenile need to prove himself. McCree never did find out what they'd done with the body. A blind eye and a turned back. Kept his business and his life like a good citizen should.

He's a good person now. He has to remember that.

But it's hard when the men are side-eyeing Hanzo like starving men at a sudden feast. It's hard, when Hanzo, with his hair up and his fucking cheek bones and his pale, foreign skin, is walking up to the bar. Sitting down like he belongs there.

The three men, clumped together at McCree's end don't even speak. They're moving in unison. A flock of birds in dingy coats and dusty boots. Sweat-streaked beards.

"Well howdy," the one who had spoken to McCree says. He's blond, under the day's work grime. Trimmed little mustache. Playing at refined.

Hanzo does not answer him. Hanzo is staring at McCree.

"Bar man," Hanzo says, and it's a good choice, feigning distance. Maybe not as innocent and foreign as all that. "I will have a--" Hanzo's words cut off, the blonde has a hand clapped on his elbow.

The other who had spoken, rat-like face, wild brown hair, puts his hand on Hanzo's other shoulders.

"Well now," he says, and McCree can see the way his grip on Hanzo's shoulder tightens. Fabric wrinkling under his fingers, "that's just plain rude. My friend there said howdy, chink, least you can do is give him the ol' ni hao back."

McCree's throat feels dry. Scratchy. He doesn't know what to say. How to defend Hanzo against this. The man by the window is watching the scenario with what appears to be only passing interest.

"I am trying to order a drink," Hanzo says, passive. He hasn't shrugged the hands from his body yet, hasn't panicked on the level of the Apache. All good signs.

Or really, really bad ones.

"Gonna pick up the tab for the lot of us, then," the first man asks, grinning, flashing his teeth at McCree. "You being so rude and all, us trynna be friends, least you could do."

"I thought the least I could do was give you the 'old ni hao'," Hanzo says. It reminds McCree of Genji and this is not the time.

Surprisingly, the first man laughs at that. Releases Hanzo's elbow. The second man laughs too, slower, not as genuine. The third doesn't.

"We'll take four whiskeys," the first man says, leaning across the bar. "On Ni Hao's tab."

McCree looks at Hanzo. Hanzo nods, a quick jab with his chin. There's a feeling in McCree's gut, his old instincts kicking to life. Years of Genji have attuned him to these sorts of situations.

He pours the drinks.

House rotgut. Nothing special.

A glass is pushed to each man.

The third guy, the silent one, reaches over Hanzo to take his glass. He shoots McCree a grin as he does. He has no tongue. The silence makes sense now.

The three men linger, lips to their glasses as Hanzo drinks; throws it back like he had the cactus juice earlier. A larger amount this time. His throat works the liquid down, McCree can see the way his Adam's apple bobs in his throat.

Arousal again.

This really isn't the time.

"See, buddy," the second guy says, fingers tightening one more time on Hanzo's shoulder, "not so hard. You gotta a cigarette to share with your friends here, got a--"

He never finishes his sentence.

Hanzo slams the now empty glass into his face.

A blur of motion McCree can barely follow.

The bar stool Hanzo had been sitting in is gone, flung away, McCree hadn't traced its trajectory. The silent man is down, flat on his back, Hanzo's hands around his throat. Hanzo straddling his waist, one knee jammed into his sternum.

The second man is screaming, clutching at his face. Blood between his fingers, dripping onto the bar now littered with broken glass. Too little glass, too much blood.

The blond man has a pistol to Hanzo's temple. Muzzle against the greying hair.

"Let him go you chink fuck," the man says, yelling. To be heard over his friend, who is still screaming. Guttural, visceral gibberish. Something about his eyes. It's only been thirty seconds, maybe forty.

The blond only has eyes for Hanzo. A mistake.

"Drop the gun," McCree says. Surprisingly calm. The old nerves, the old reflexes still in place.

He's holding Peacekeeper.

He isn't sure when he pulled it out from under the bar.

At one point in time, McCree would have killed the blond without a second thought. Would have opened his throat, painted Hanzo's pretty face with his blood. But now, though the hammer is cocked, McCree's finger hovers outside the trigger guard. A good citizen. A good person.

Well at least he's trying.

"What the fuck?" The blond man asks, eyes narrowed. Glaring at McCree now.

"I said gun down," McCree says again, raising his voice. "And shut your friend up." He twitches Peacekeeper toward the screaming man, still cradling his face. Blood smeared on his elbows. Broken glass embedded in his forearms from leaning his weight on the bar. A mess. 

The blond man hesitates, for a moment, opens his mouth.

"Don't say another word," McCree says. "You thinkin' about testing me, seein' if you're quicker on the trigger but I can tell you, you ain't. So..." McCree takes a breath. Licks his lips. Hanzo's hands are still around the silent man's throat. The screaming man has taken to wimpering, his body slumped over the bar. His eyes, his eyes, his motherfucking eyes.

McCree swallows.

"So here we are. All alive, mostly. Nothin' done can't be undone." He glances at the man on the bar. All the blood. "Mostly," he adds again. Peacekeeper, despite the tremble in his voice, is steady. "I suggest you take yer friends and scoot. 'fore our Oriental friend their changes tactics and breaks your fuckin' arm."

"What if I--" the blond man starts. His arm is shaking, gaze shifting between McCree and Hanzo. A caged animal. Pitiable.

"I think," a foreign voice says, booming over the scene, cutting the blond man off, "dat maybe, we should be doing as the bartender requests, ya?"

The three people not currently incapacitated glance over to the corner. The owner of the general store. McCree had almost forgotten. He's talked to the man on a handful of occasions. Mostly here, at the bar. He supplies McCree with expensive German schnapps. He's the only person who ever orders them.

Reinhardt. The man's name is Reinhardt.

McCree nods. But he waits for the blond to lower his gun before he lays Peacekeeper on the bar.

"Your friend there," Reinhardt continues, walking toward the blond. Huge, the man is huge, how has McCree never noticed this before? Big sure, broad and tall, but he's a giant in this small space. A good head taller than McCree. Even with how friendly he sounds, his booming, overbearing presence is enough to intimidate, "sounds like he may need a doctor. Real bad fall he took there, eh? Real coincidental, him striking da glass so on point like dat. Yah?"

The blond's eyes go wide. Indignant. Outraged. Reinhardt claps one humongous hand on his shoulder. Hanzo stands off the man on the floor. Steps out of the way so Reinhardt can pull him upright. Which Reinhardt does, easily, a hand on the lapels of the man's ratty jacket. One handed. It's surreal.

"Gather your friend," he says. "And we will walk to the doctor."

"That isn't what happened! This fucking--"

"Details, details," the big man booms. "We can walk to the constable instead then. Three against three."

The man with the glass in his face has taken up groaning again, getting louder with each breath. The blond looks at him, maybe for the first time since the fight began, and blanches. His little blond mustache twitches.

"Fuck," he mutters. "You win. This time," he's looking at Reinhardt. Glaring at him. Like he isn't scared. Then he looks over at McCree. "This isn't fucking over. You won't--"

"Let's not make threats while I still got a gun on me," McCree says. "You wanna take it up with the law, well like our big friend says, three on three. Assumin' Glass here makes it through the night. The blood loss."

The blond man frowns. Grips his groaning friend by the jacket, pulls him upright. The man's hands haven't left his face. McCree is absurdly grateful for that.

The two standing men stagger to the door, blond with his shoulder wedged under glass' armpit for support. Reinhardt follows, dragging the unconscious silent man with him.

"Thank you," McCree says, following Reinhardt to the door. Gripping the handle with his flesh hand. His palm is dry despite how shaken he feels. Old nerves. Old habits.

"No need for thanks." Reinhardt says. His good eye closes, opens. Purposeful. A wink. McCree grins.

"I mean it, partner. Schnapps any time. Even when I'm closed."

Reinhardt laughs. Claps his free hand against McCree's back. McCree catches himself against the doorframe with an answering chuckle.

"Is a deal my friend, is a deal."

McCree closes the door behind the giant man. Hesitates a second before clicking the lock home. Hanzo is still standing near the bar. 

There is blood on his hands, on his shirt.

"We should have killed those men." Hanzo says. He's scowling. He's right. Genji would have said the same thing. They probably would have killed them if Reinhardt hadn't intervened.

"Damned if you do, damned if you don't. His blood?" McCree asks, gesturing with his head, leaning back against the door.

Hanzo glances down at his hands, flexes them. "Some of both," he says. He holds his palm out.

"Didn't know you could fight," McCree says. Walking forward. Taking Hanzo's hand in his.

There's a chunk of glass embedded in the center of Hanzo's palm.

"I did not know you'd be so slow on the draw," Hanzo shoots back. He sounds offended, but when McCree meets his gaze, Hanzo is smiling.

"I'm allowed to be a little rusty. Been nearly...fifteen years...Genji never even mentioned you," McCree says.

"I would say I am surprised. But I am not. Genji..." Hanzo trails off. His hand is still sitting in McCree's, fingers curling in on themselves slightly. Hanzo bites his lip, plucks the shard of glass out with his free hand. He holds it between his fingers for a second, contemplating, then tosses it down onto the bar top with the rest of the mess.

"But you know about me?" McCree asks. His thumb is running circuits along the side of Hanzo's pinkie.

Hanzo hesitates. McCree can see the hesitation in the lines of Hanzo's shoulders, the curve of his neck. The way he won't meet McCree's gaze. "Genji told me many things."

"That offer still good?" McCree asks.

Hanzo looks up, sharply. Eyes wide. His pupils expand, rapid, this close, McCree has no trouble seeing the shift.

"You will help me?"

"Darlin'..."

He should say he'd help him regardless. Should be the good person. He doesn't need to stoop this low. He shouldn't.

"Of course I'll help you."

Regardless.

Regardless.

But the word is stuck and McCree can't make it come. Regardless. He wants Hanzo, not for the ghost of Genji, what Genji had meant to him, but for what Hanzo is proving himself to be.

Capable.

Smart.

Quick-tongued.

Hot as shit.

Hanzo nods, fingers already working the buttons of his shirt. A line of fresh blood down the front. They should clean themselves up first, dress Hanzo's wound.

But McCree doesn't want to, doesn't care. His blood is high from the fight, from the time wasted, from the memories. He would fuck Hanzo on the filthy, glass ridden floor if he had to.

McCree reaches out, with his wooden hand, pulls Hanzo into him. Cranes his neck just the slightest, locks his lips over Hanzo's. He lets go of Hanzo's bloody hand, runs his fingers along Hanzo's chin. Scratches into Hanzo's hair.

"McCree," Hanzo murmurs against his lips, and the way he says it--Muhcree--sends a shiver down the bartender's back.

He bites at Hanzo's lips and the smaller man gasps. Hanzo's hand is in his hair, tugging, controlling the pace. His other hand, his bloody one, is braced on McCree's neck. Hanzo smells like whiskey, a underscore of sage, the metallic tang of blood. McCree feels drunk, more so even than earlier.

Harder than he may have ever been before.

Though that's probably just the time since his last fuck talking.

He breaks out of the kiss, groans low in his throat at the small noise Hanzo makes. A breathy, parting sigh.

"We should maybe take this upstairs you think?" McCree asks and he watches Hanzo translate, can practically see the gears turning over in Hanzo's head.

"We can."

"Want me ta carry you?"

Bridal style, very romantic.

Hanzo chuckles, shakes his head. "You've not done so well yet as to incapacitate me. I can walk," Hanzo says.

And if that doesn't sound like a challenge, McCree isn't sure what has.

He slips his hands down to Hanzo's hips, walks them back until McCree's back hits the bar. He's got a knee between Hanzo's thighs. Teeth on Hanzo's neck, worrying the skin with little bites. He wants to mark him up, leave Hanzo's pretty skin with evidence of what they've been up to, but he doesn't know if Hanzo would appreciate it.

The sentiment or the implication.

He pushes the shirt off Hanzo's shoulders, cups Hanzo's pec with his flesh hand. Warm, supple skin. Peaked, pink little nipple. Hanzo hisses when he flicks it. A noise of dissent, but he's arching his back into the touch. A contradiction.

"Feel good, sugar?" McCree asks, because he needs to know. Maybe Hanzo is doing this for the wrong reasons, because he feels he needs to, owes it, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't enjoy it.

"If you do not stop stopping to talk, I would be better," Hanzo snaps. His hands are in McCree's hair pulling his face toward Hanzo's chest. "I want your mouth on me, Jesse McCree."

It's good enough. McCree keeps Hanzo steady with a hand on the small of his back, envelops the nipple he'd been plucking at with his mouth. Scrapes his teeth against it to feel Hanzo shake against him. Hanzo rutting against his thigh.

McCree wonders if Hanzo could get off like this, just a mouth on his tit, coming from his nipples alone; but Hanzo says his name, a slur of Japanese, the word fuck, and McCree loses the patience.

He slips the hand on Hanzo's back to his thigh, lifts until Hanzo wraps the leg around McCree's waist. The second leg takes less prompting.

Not quite bridal style, but it will do.

Hanzo is looking at him from under his lashes. Face flushed. Arms twined around McCree's neck. He looks done in, looks wrecked, stray hairs that have escaped his ponytail sticking to his forehead, his cheeks.

With barely a thought, McCree pulls the ribbon from Hanzo's hair. Lets it flutter to the floor. Hanzo leans into the inch that separates they're faces.

When their lips meet again it's softer. The press and sweep of Hanzo's tongue, Hanzo's fingers on his back.

McCree adjusts his grip on Hanzo's ass, makes sure Hanzo's weight is level then steps away from the bar.

The walk from the bar floor to the room on the second is difficult enough while carrying someone, but Hanzo also seems to have made it his job to be as distracting as possible. Licking at McCree's neck, nipping. Pushing his dick against McCree's stomach with these little pulses of his hips.

McCree makes it, somehow, a miracle within itself. He drops Hanzo onto the bed with little pomp, proceeds to shed his vest. The buttons on his shirt take him longer, too long. Hanzo is watching him, heavy lidded. Palming himself through his slacks. Hanzo has his shoes kicked off, his pants shucked down his legs, tossed somewhere to the side. And McCree can't get his fingers to work, he's too sweaty, too keyed up. Hanzo sits up, hands and knees, nuzzles against the bulge of McCree's crotch and the rest of the buttons no longer matter.

"Christ fuck, darlin'," McCree says, hands dropping to Hanzo's hair, the wild tangle of it. Hanzo is mouthing at him, even through the pants the wet heat is maddening.

"Will you let me?" Hanzo asks.

Like he even needs to ask. McCree nods, mute, shudders when Hanzo gets the buttons of his trousers undone, pushes them down his hips. Stares unabashedly at McCree's cock. McCree knows he's big, but the look he gets from Hanzo, the narrowing appraisal, makes him breathless. Just a little on edge.

"Like it?" He asks, fingers trailing unders Hanzo's eye. Petting.

"I am..." Hanzo swallows. Makes a vague motion with his head, then he's going for it. Trailing his lips up it. McCree's throat catches, breathing halts, leaves him in a desperate wheeze.

Hanzo's lips are warm, and just the slightest touch of them to the head of McCree's dick is enough to have McCree bucking forward. Hanzo takes the motion in stride, opens his mouth when McCree instinctually does it again.

It's rude. McCree knows it's rude.

But Hanzo takes it so good, opening his mouth further with each nudge. Accepting McCree deeper. Swirling his tongue against the shaft. McCree wonders briefly if Hanzo would let him fuck his throat, if it isn't what he intends. Halfway in and he's showing no sigh of a gag reflex yet.

McCree groans again, thrusts a little deeper, and it happens. Hanzo backing off, coughing. Saliva all down his chin, in his beard. The sight is filthy, horribly arousing. McCree uses the hands in Hanzo's hair to pull him back in, and Hanzo comes willingly, stretching his lips around McCree's girth. Taking before McCree can thrust. Eager. Eyes locked on McCree's face.

It's too much, too good. Hanzo is making these sounds, little gags as he bobs, aborted little moans and McCree can't take it. The brief fluttering of Hanzo's throat as he goes too deep, Hanzo's body trying to breathe around the intrusion, is amazing. And when Hanzo pulls off, McCree has to wrap a hand around the base of his cock or risk spilling himself across Hanzo's cheek.

Hanzo draws in a breath, a ragged, choking thing, but McCree's hand in his hair keeps him from getting back to it. Hanzo meets his gaze, eyes wide and teary, lips red and shining with spit and pre-come. McCree has to squeeze down harder, closes his eyes against the sight.

"Did I do something wrong?" Hanzo asks and his voice is scratchy, abused, throat raw. McCree can hear it. It breaks over him in a wave.

"No. Darlin. Jesus no, you're the best I ever had just..." McCree takes a breath, squeezes his cock one more time, tipping his head for emphasis. "Just trying not to end the show early here."

Hanzo follows McCree's head tilt. Licks his lips. "What if I want to taste it?"

McCree shakes his head, moaning low in his throat. An animal sound. Inhuman. Tortured. "I want it to be good for you too."

Hanzo's cheeks are red, from the embarrassment or the exertion McCree isn't sure. "If...it is with you, then it is good." Hanzo says, slowly. That self-sacrificial streak making itself seen again.

It isn't a turn off this time though.

McCree grabs Hanzo by the waist, flips him over. He hasn't asked about lube, doesn't really keep any on hand himself, and he's not about to try anything that could hurt the man beneath him. But he wants them to come together, something symbolic in the gesture.

"Squeeze your thighs," McCree instructs, petting his wooden hand down Hanzo's back. Watching how Hanzo's skin jumps at the foreign contact. Little tremors in his muscles.

Hanzo complies. McCree traces the seam between his thighs up to his ass, sweeps his thumb teasingly against the sensitive flesh there.

"Are you okay like this?" He can't see Hanzo's face through his hair. But he can see the nod, the eager way Hanzo pushes back against McCree's hand. "Alright, then keep 'em tight for me, baby. Just like this okay, Hanzo?"

Hanzo gasps at the use of his name and McCree files that detail away. Won't let it be lost under the torrent of all the other things he wants to remember. The color of Hanzo's skin against his, the flush of his thighs as McCree pushes his cock between them.

He keeps them tight, makes McCree fight for every inch. McCree drapes himself across Hanzo's back. Kisses his shoulder.

"Perfect, Hanzo," he says. "You're so perfect for me. So goddamn perfect," he repeats, shifting his hips, fucking between Hanzo's thighs.

Hanzo shudders against him, grabs for McCree's flesh hand, brings it to his cock. Bold. Amazing. McCree presses his forehead between Hanzo's shoulder blades as their hands tangle around Hanzo's cock. Drag roughly along his flesh.

McCree is leaking pre-come, it makes the slide easier. Wet noises with every thrust. McCree uses his wooden hand to pull the two of them upright, Hanzo's back to McCree's chest. Supported from the front with McCree's hand on his chest. Prosthetic fingers pressing into the flesh there, sucked in by the plush press of Hanzo's pecs. He gropes at Hanzo's nipple and Hanzo groans, voice breaking over McCree's name.

"Jesse," he's muttering, head turned halfway over his shoulder, hand abandoning McCree's on his dick to grab at McCree's head. Their mouths collide, clash, tongues tangling. Messy. Wonderful.

McCree can't hold out, not with the way Hanzo's thigh muscles are flexing against him, the drool of Hanzo's cum over his fist. Hanzo panting against his mouth.

He comes; hips pushing deep and final, snapping forward. The wave hits him in a rush, takes him in the knees. McCree rides his orgasm gracelessly, drops his head to Hanzo's shoulder and bites to keep from crying out any louder.

His mind blanks on the feeling. Hanzo's scent in his nose, thighs still so tight around McCree's cock. Sticky with McCree's cum. And when he comes to his senses, he's folded over Hanzo's back again, weight pinning Hanzo to the mattress.

He's boneless enough all it takes is a small shove from Hanzo to roll them. McCree lands on his back, wooden arm trapped beneath Hanzo's shoulders as they lay side by side, panting on the bed.

His flesh hand is covered in come.

He's a little sad to have missed Hanzo's orgasm. He briefly considers rolling onto Hanzo again, cleaning Hanzo's mess up with his mouth, to see if he can get Hanzo to come again, but his muscles protest the thought.

He's thirty-seven, not twenty. Besides, if the way Hanzo is sighing next to him is any indication, the man is satisfied. McCree looks over at him, grinning, unable to keep the sappy smile off his face.

"You okay there, Hanzo?"

Hanzo nods, nuzzles his head against McCree's shoulder. He lets out another contented sigh. "It was good?" he asks, watching McCree from under his lashes.

The uncertainty in his tone makes McCree pause. An echo of something said earlier.

'Did I do something wrong?'

McCree shakes the feeling off. Rubs his metal thumb along Hanzo's throat. He needs a cigar, or a cigarette before he can tackle where that train of thought leads.

"It was great," McCree assures him.

Hanzo smiles, a tight pull of his lips. Nods his head once. "Good," he says. He licks his lips. Scrubs a hand through his facial hair. "We are filthy," Hanzo says, glancing down himself. Nose wrinkled with disgust.

McCree chuckles, opens and closes his hand still covered in Hanzo's slick. "Yeah," he agrees, making no other attempt to move.

"Do you have a tub?"

McCree sighs. "Yeah," he says, "end of the hall's the washroom."

Hanzo sits up. Glances down at McCree, grins. "Are you coming?" he asks.

McCree returns the smile. Pushes himself to sitting, wooden arm sliding around Hanzo's shoulder. "Couldn't think of anythin' I'd rather do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back! Hope you liked it. Where am I going I still don't know but hey I got to learn the word intercrural today so cooooool. Tags updated but if you want me to add anything/feel I missed something let me know!


	3. Chapter 3

McCree's washroom is not fancy. Nothing compared to the big Grand Hotel on Main. No indoor outhouse, no boiling water. But he's got taps, actual running water instead of just a basin and sponge. A real brass tub.

He's proud of the little amenities he can provide his guests.

Hanzo runs the water, looking unimpressed. The come on his thighs has begun to dry; McCree can see the way it flakes when his legs brush together, knows that has to be uncomfortable.

The water runs no hotter than lukewarm, but Hanzo doesn't complain as he steps into the tub.

"It different in Japan?" McCree asks.

Hanzo nods, settles himself in the water. The tub is not very big, there really isn't room for two. Hanzo seems to realize that, glances around guiltily. "We have more...people," he says, he makes a gesture, the water drips from his fingers. "More space."

"Public, right?"

"Public?"

Genji had mentioned it once, off-handedly. McCree kneels at the edge of the tub, touches Hanzo's shoulder. "Like a bath house, everybody in one room."

Hanzo nods. "Yes, like that. I did not realize..." He trails off with another small gesture. The water has already gone cloudy. Sweat and come. Blood.

"Lemme wash your hair." McCree says, leaning his cheek against Hanzo's. Chin hooked over Hanzo's bare shoulder. His metal and wood fingers trace the tattoo on the other side. The swirls and dips. The dragon scales.

"Can you get your hand wet?" Hanzo sounds genuinely curious.

"Don' like to soak it, but a little water won't rust the joints out. You didn't know about this little addition, didja?" McCree asks.

"Genji never mentioned it."

"Genji didn't know," McCree swallows, stands. "Doesn't," he corrects. He busies himself, collecting the smaller wash basin, the perfumed oil he keeps for when the girls next door come by. It smells like lavender. McCree has always liked the stuff. "Happened...after," McCree says, turning back. "Got it 'bout after, I dunno, six months. Back running with Genji I was...whole."

"It works very well," Hanzo observes.

"Got lucky," McCree says, returning to the tub, filling the basin with fresh water from the tap. Hanzo is sitting with his legs spread, bent at the knee. Breaking the surface of the water like little islands. "What's Japan like?"

"Genji didn't tell you?"

"Small things. Lotta change can happen, fifteen years."

"I suppose. Genji came here long ago." Hanzo leans back as McCree massages the oil into his hair, scratches lightly at his scalp. "The emperor is dying." Hanzo says. "And my father...is...he wants his son home. My father has always..."

"Genji said he was an asshole."

Hanzo chuckles. Closes his eyes as McCree pours some of the clean water over his head. Working the oil with it, rubbing it in. Gentle.

"I suppose," Hanzo repeats eventually. "Genji and I are different."

"You sound like you don't really wanna talk about this," McCree says. He slides his hand down, tracking the oil down Hanzo's neck, across the top of his back.

"My past will not help me find my brother."

"But mine will."

Hanzo hums a reply. His eyes are still closed. McCree feels another surge of that useless longing. If it had been Hanzo, all those years ago, instead of Genji, would McCree's advances been so painfully rejected? There's obviously some level of mutual attraction here, not much more than duty to Hanzo perhaps. But a little something.

He slides his hand forward and down. Traces Hanzo's collarbone, the water lapping at his fingers has gone mostly cold.

"What did he write about me?"

Hanzo's eyes blink open. "He wrote about your adventures. I thought at first he was lying. Trying to make me..." Hanzo's eyes narrow. He's touches McCree's hand. "Envious. But he--he wrote things about you that I don't think he could have made up."

"Like about my big dick," McCree jokes, attempting to lighten the mood, quash the twisting feeling he gets every time Hanzo's nails catch on his knuckles. The glass puncture, long-congealed now, rough against the back of McCree's hand.

Hanzo stiffens at the words though. Fingers tightening just slightly on McCree's wrist. McCree leans his chin on Hanzo's shoulder again, smiling now. Wolfish.

"Holy Christ, he did?" McCree says. It should occur to him that it's weird, he should think it's weird, but he doesn't. It's kind of hot. Thinking about Genji, residually turned on, telling Hanzo, for God knows what reason.

"Only a few times." Hanzo says. He's blushing. McCree brushes Hanzo's wet hair to one side, giving himself a better view of Hanzo's face. His expression.

"I didn't even know he was writing. I never caught him at it."

"I think he mostly wrote at night. 'The stars are so big here'. 'The stars are so bright'. 'My candle is running down'. 'Jesse will wake soon'." Hanzo quotes. He is frowning, just slightly. "The stars here," he says, looking at McCree, "are not different than Japan. Genji was wrong about that much."

"But not about my dick."

Hanzo's face reddens further. He looks away. An admission.

McCree licks his lips. The question is there again, ripe for the asking. Hanzo's blush. Hanzo's eyes. His knees like islands, solitary things.

"How old are you, Hanzo?"

"Thirty-eight." The grey in his hair pegs him older, dignified. McCree brushes his hand against Hanzo's temple, into that streak, parting the strands with his fingers.

McCree can't even imagine. 'You a virgin, Hanzo?' He wants to ask it, can't. The words are caught in his throat. Thirty-eight. Is it even possible?

"You ready to switch?" McCree asks instead.

Hanzo nods. Stands. He doesn't move to cover himself from McCree's gaze. Probably all those years of public bathhouses. McCree takes in the sight. The hairless lines of Hanzo's abs, defined muscle. Neat little thatch of pubic hair around his cock. And his cock. McCree reaches out with his wooden hand, runs a finger down the length of it.

Firm under his grip. It's a good size, smaller than McCree's but still thick. Uncut. McCree isn't surprised.

Hanzo is staring down at him. Water running in rivulets down his legs. Bottom lip trapped between his teeth.

"Sorry," McCree says, grinning, giving Hanzo's cock one more swipe with his thumb. Feeling how Hanzo flesh jumps under his grip. Firming up further. Getting there.

"Do not be sorry."

"You a virgin, Hanzo?"

Hanzo looks away, sharply, chin pulled in against his chest, breath drawn in a quick inhale. "You should clean yourself up, McCree." Hanzo says, removing McCree's hand from his dick.

A rebuttal.

McCree stands, offers Hanzo a steadying hand out of the tub. Hanzo doesn't take it.

"Towels are in the closet, there." McCree says, gesturing. He pulls the plug, watches the water swirl down into the drain. Thirty-eight, how is it even possible?

"So you and Genji ran guns," Hanzo says as McCree refills the tub. A towel around his waist. Hands brushing through his own hair.

Seeing Hanzo, cleaner now, comfortable once more, reminds McCree of his own discomfort. The mess in the hair around his crotch. The smell of his sweat. He turns the spigot on, re-plugs the drain. Starts on the fastenings of his arm.

"Yeah, for a bit. At the start." McCree taps his fingers against the lacquered wood of his elbow. Smooth and cool under his fingertips. The water, splashing against the brass, is terribly loud. McCree adjusts the spray down. "First year or so."

Hanzo is behind him. Lingering. Some sort of a ghost. When McCree turns, unclipping the final two latches, Hanzo is there. Hands brushing McCree's as he takes the prosthetic. McCree watches Hanzo. The reverent way Hanzo traces the wood.

It's uncomfortable. McCree doesn't let people touch his arm. It's too intimate. Them handling a piece of him. He looks up from Hanzo's hands to Hanzo's face. Hanzo watching him watch.

"And then?" Hanzo asks.

McCree steps into the tub, wrenches the faucet closed. The water is cool. Hanzo used all the heat. "We started working for a different guy. Deadlock wasn't really...we had been kids, not Genji, before Genji. Just a bunch a kids wanted to be Jesse James. Genji showed up, wanted in, and no one--They didn't want him. Is what I'm trying to say. Deadlock was like a little family, all tied in on itself. Too self-involved. So they gave him to me, we were closest in age, and they gave us soft shit. Run the guns, don't ask questions. Check in on the bounty office, don't ask questions." McCree starts at the tangle of his pubes, scrubbing roughly.

McCree sighs. Hanzo is kneeling on the floor, still holding McCree's arm. "And we got sick of it. Genji got sick of it. He wanted to be a Pinkerton, stupidest thing. Like it wouldn't have made us dead men. Leaving Deadlock was bad enough, plannin' to. Luckily I guess 'bout three months after Genji started getting real reckless, restless; there was a bust.

"We got picked up by a guy, real old mean sonofabitch. He saw the potential. Genji and I were a good team."

"And you robbed banks." Hanzo doesn't sound disappointed. Logically, McCree thinks he should sound disappointed.

"So Genji told you the lot then, mostly," McCree ducks his head under the water, a quick dunk. Comes up dripping. As good a wash as he's gonna get. "Wonder why he didn't tell me." McCree leans forward, elbow balanced on his knee.

"I cannot pretend to understand Genji's motivations," Hanzo says. "If I had to guess, I would say it was not really because of you. Genji...admired you. If he thought you thought he was writing out of," Hanzo makes a circular motion with his hand, lip between his teeth again. McCree can tell the English is not coming to him.

"Homesickness?" McCree offers. He leans forward further, knees slipping under the water, holding his weight, chest braced on the far wall. Hanzo is not staring at his stump, McCree is grateful for that.

"Yes. Perhaps. He would have been hurt, if he thought you were hurt by his letters."

Not the most logical reason. But also maybe not the reason. Just Hanzo speculating.

"What did you do? Back in Japan, while Genji was here, writing to you?"

"It doesn't matter," Hanzo says. He places McCree's arm to the side. Still gentle, so gentle. Reaches out to touch McCree's hair. Parting the tangles of it. Gentle, gentle. "When was the last time you saw my brother?"

"That's really not a good place to start, darlin'." McCree says. Meeting Hanzo's gaze is difficult.

"You promised to help me."

"And I'm gonna," McCree says. "But where we parted...the way. It's a dead-end. It's a loss."

"What happened to you two?"

"It wasn't what happened," McCree says. His stump is tingling, phantom itches. Echoes of the pain, the burning, tearing sensation of loss. Hanzo traces the shell of his ear. "Not just what happened. There was so much, there at the end. Goin' wrong. Goin' to absolute shit."

"So where do we start?" Hanzo asks.

McCree closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath. "We start in Utah," McCree says. His gut flexes at the thought, feels like it's curling in on itself like a snake.

He was supposed to be past all this.

But Hanzo is staring at him, intently. Hanzo needs him. McCree can't ignore that. Fuck his business, fuck his life. Genji had been someone he would have done anything for. Same holds true for Hanzo it seems, dumb as that is.

"We start in Utah," McCree repeats. "And we find a man named Reyes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want an official petition to change McCree's name to McCreem. Typing this on my phone and 90% of the time I type McCreem instead of McCree[space]. Am I the only person with this issue? Lol
> 
> Anyway! Thanks for sticking with me through three chapters. Not so much sin-bin smut this time and it's a pretty short update so sorry!! But I hope you liked it anyway. I'm developing an actual plot, maybe?? So lemme know what you think.
> 
> As always, comments, concerns, questions hit me up in the comments or drop me a line at vrunkas.tumblr.com


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A warning before we start. This one gets gruesome. Gore throughout and weird stream of conscious-style, so yeah. It's all flashback gore, but still...

McCree can't stand trains. They make him feel on edge, pent up. Always have.

Genji had thought it was funny.

Hanzo apparently does too.

He is smirking in the seat next to McCree, as McCree squirms and fidgets. They must make quite a sight. Restless, nervous energy; calm, still serenity. If there were more than eight people in the car, they would probably be drawing attention to themselves.

McCree had briefly considered taking coach, or even horses, for the journey; but time is not on their side. Train is the fastest, surest method, especially since Gabe isn't bound to just crop up when they get there.

Gabe.

There's a name McCree hasn't let himself think about in years. Locked away with Genji. Gabriel Reyes.

McCree leans his forehead against the train window and sighs. Hanzo glances at him, sidelong, McCree can see him the reflection. The tilt of his head. The ends of his hair curling up just slightly in the heat. He's in a hat this time, a little American bowler. Strange fashion choices.

"Worried about your saloon?" Hanzo asks. His voice is pitched low, barely audible over the groan and clanking of the engine, the wheels spinning and spinning and spinning below them.

"Nah, Reinhardt'll keep 'er safe." McCree says. He has a headache, niggling little spot of heat behind his eyes. The noise isn't helping. The cool glass of the window isn't helping.

He had left his saloon with Reinhardt. It had been his only real feasible option. The girls next door and he had a good rapport, the old woman who owned the cat house likes him. But if the three men from the bar fight decide to make trouble, McCree figures Reinhardt would have a better time dealing with it. With them.

McCree rolls his head, leans in close to Hanzo's space. The trip to the station had taken most of the morning. Packing, planning. Hanzo has left most of his belongings at the bar. Brought only his wrapped parcel. One bag of clothes.

"I'm thinking about your mouth on my cock, darlin'," McCree whispers, lips against Hanzo's ear. A secret. A lie. But it makes him feel better to tease Hanzo in a place like this, than to admit he's nervous about the journey.

About what they might find.

Genji could very well be dead.

Genji is probably dead.

But McCree won't let himself think about that. Won't focus on the memories of Genji screaming. His own concussive waves of nausea and pain. His arm, his arm, good fuckin' Christ his arm.

Hanzo takes the bait beautifully. Raising his chin up just the slightest, mouth a tight little scowl. Disapproving. Eyes narrowed like a cat.

"You have no sense of tact," Hanzo chides. But he's spreading his legs as he says it, pressing his knee up against McCree's. It lessens the sting of the blow. McCree lets his hand linger at the back of Hanzo's neck. That stupid hat. A snooty, banker's fashion statement. The cufflinks too.

McCree leans back, drops his hand to Hanzo's knee to give one quick squeeze. He imagines the flesh under his wooden palm is warm. "Don't need decorum an' fancy airs, sweet heart," McCree says, grinning, dropping a wink, "I'm told people like how genuine," and he pronounces each syllable of the word, playing up the accent, "I am."

"How desperate, more like."

McCree laughs. It's startled out of him. Gen-u-ine. Hanzo is such an enigma, different than Genji yet similar. He can see the relation, easy, in more than just their slanted eyes, aristocratic cheekbones.

The train lets out a whistle. A piercing screech. McCree winces, eyes slipping shut. When he opens them, Hanzo is staring at him. His eyes are brown. Darker than Genji's.

"Are you okay?" He asks. Whispering again.

"Fine jus' don't much like trains."

Hanzo looks down at his hands.

McCree wants to kiss him.

"Would you like--," Hanzo cuts himself off, standing abruptly. Rummaging in the bag compartment above them. Standing on his toes to do so. Swaying dangerously with the movement of the train.

Without thinking about it, McCree braces a steadying hand against Hanzo's hip.

Hanzo glances down at him, briefly, just a small shared moment.

Then the engine screeches and Hanzo looks away and the moment is passed.

When Hanzo sits back down, he's holding a piece of paper. Heavy stationary. Yellowing with age. Hanzo fingers the fold of it, reverent in his motions. Gentle as he'd been with McCree's arm.

"What's that?" McCree asks, because it seems like Hanzo doesn't plan on telling him. If he had to, he could guess, only so many things it could be after all; but it seems important to let Hanzo tell him.

"This," Hanzo says, unfolding it, thumb spreading it flat on his knee, "is Genji's first letter home."

McCree looks at it.

A page of incomprehensible Japanese. Could have been written by Genji or anyone. The edges of the paper are no longer crisp and sharp. They curl in slightly, soft with time.

"I can't read a lick a that, you know."

Hanzo smiles, that small up-tilt at the corners of his mouth. "I know. But I thought you would like to see it."

"Did you keep them all?"

Hanzo shakes his head. "I am not so sentimental."

The fact that he's kept this one says otherwise but McCree doesn't tease him.

"Did you keep any others?"

Hanzo glances at him, still smiling. Infuriatingly smug in his own subtle way. "A few."

McCree won't ask which ones, won't walk as easily into Hanzo's baiting. McCree touches the back of Hanzo's neck again. Mismatched fingers. There is a man three seats behind them, fast asleep, his snores audible even over the constant rumble of the engine. Everyone else is ahead of them in the car. No one is looking. It would be so easy.

Hanzo is biting his lip, just slightly. Pupils blown wide again. So, so easy.

One of the women in front of them says something to the man she is with. Laughter. It shatters between them. Hanzo looks away. He's blushing. Pink across this cheeks. McCree lets his hand drop back into his lap.

"Wanna read it to me?" McCree asks, nudging his knee lightly against Hanzo's. His headache is resurfacing.

Hanzo clears his throat. Finger touching where McCree supposes the letter begins. Wrong side of the paper. "'Brother, here I am. In America. I shall say write it again. America. It feels unreal,'" Hanzo pauses. He licks his lips. He isn't looking at the letter. Has it memorized. McCree can imagine Hanzo, younger, beardless, reading this to himself. Over and over. "'It isn't like father says. The people are kind. Many of the people are kind. I have made a friend. A friend in America, brother, can you believe? The stars here are so big. I cannot wait for you to see them.'"

Hanzo stops his reciting.

"That's all he wrote?"

All that text for such few words. Hanzo seems to catch McCree's tone. He shrugs, folds the letter back up. Careful, careful.

"He wanted you to see it?"

Hanzo tucks the letter into his vest. He picks at his nails, seems to realize he's doing it, clenches them into fists. "I was the one who wanted to come."

"But Genji did?"

"Our father would not let us both. And I was...needed. At home."

"Genji was expendable?" It's not the word McCree wants. It's too callous, too indignant.

Hanzo frowns. A worry line between his eyebrows. Knuckles going white. "If Father had let me go, Genji would have followed. Genji...is his own person."

"But you ain't?"

Hanzo looks at him, meets McCree's gaze. He's angry. McCree has pushed too far. The whistle screams again, sharp, splitting pain through McCree's head. McCree pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezes his eyes shut so hard he sees white explosions behind his eyes. He thinks of the ragged stump of his elbow. Genji's face, covered in blood. Genji's guts, slimy and red-grey, hanging between his fingers. Seeming to pulsate with every one of Genji's screams.

They were a good team.

Once.

"I'm sorry," McCree says. "I shouldn'ta said that."

Hanzo sighs and McCree opens his eyes. Hanzo is looking at him still, but the lines around his eyes have softened, just the slightest. He's still frowning, but less so. Just a frown, no longer a scowl.

"I understand," Hanzo says. He brushes his knuckles against McCree's knee, pressing tight against the rough twill of them. It's own sort of apology as well. "Genji and I used to fight about it too. You are...very much like him."

"Thank you," McCree says. For the apology, the contact, the forgiveness. He doesn't know which he means. Maybe all of it. Everything.

A good person.

But somehow it feels like he's been suspended in time. Up until this very moment, since that terrible day fifteen years ago. Stagnating. Stuck.

"We tried to rob a train." McCree says. "On our own." He licks his lips. Thinks of Gabriel Reyes' face when he's shown up on Gabe's door, arm a stump, bone exposed, feverish and crying. He doesn't remember much beyond the pain. But he remembers Gabe's face. The horror, shock, the disappointment.

Gabe never asked about Genji.

"A train is more dangerous than banks?" Hanzo asks.

"Not in theory. But...on our own. Yeah. I guess." McCree clenches and relaxes the prosthetic. "I know. It is. We got stupid, greedy. Figured we'd cut everyone else outta the deal. Why split four ways when you get so much more splittin' two? Fuckin' stupid kids. 'S all we were."

"What happened?"

Where to start? McCree doesn't want to think about the past, his past, this thing he's kept locked within him for a decade, nearly two. Gabe hadn't asked and McCree had not volunteered; Genji, doubled over in the dirt, intestines between his fingers. Cut to ribbons. Shards of metal, like bullet casings, scattered between them.

They'd been having a fight.

Out of place during a job. They'd always worked so well together.

Genji, days earlier, watching McCree get plowed by some man they'd picked up in Arizona. Genji touching himself in front of McCree for the first time, hands around his dick, shuddering. They'd played this little voyeurism game before, it was old hat now, pretty much routine. But Genji had never jerked off watching McCree top the slim little ranch hands they got. And this time, this strange man with his big hands on the back of McCree's neck and his big cock spearing McCree open, McCree's knees digging into the mattress with every thrust and his head pinned; this time Genji had broken.

It had made McCree mad.

Even now, fifteen years later, knowing full well the consequences, McCree can feel the echo of that anger.

McCree all those years ago, on that anonymous bed with that anonymous cock pressing against his prostate had reached out, reached for Genji. And Genji had held his hand as they came.

And then Genji had acted like nothing had happened.

McCree shakes his head, realizes how long his silence has stretched. Hanzo is doing nothing to rush him.

"Sorry," McCree says.

Hanzo shrugs. "It is a long trip," he says. Down memory lane, to Utah. Both are true. 

God the memories.

McCree hasn't thought about any of this in so long. The bitter sting of Genji's last rejection still holds the same bite. Genji's hand on his shoulder. Genji asking what he's think, Genji sounding absolutely scandalized.

The dynamite.

The sound of it, like a gun shot, but louder. McCree had been able to feel it in his gut, the soles of his feet. One second, standing by the train with Genji's hand on his shoulder, his hand--his left hand--cradling Genji's waist. So desperate for Genji's affection, approval, mad as hell, anger twisted all up in his guts.

One second.

Boom.

Such a simple thing. Standing in the clearing, by the train car. Laying in the clearing, train blown to a bunch of useless, deadly shards of metal.

Genji had been screaming, far away. Underwater. A ringing in McCree's ears. Blood on his face. The pain wasn't there at first. Just surprise.

Blood coming from his ears. Face down in the dirt.

Genji had gotten it worse. Far, far worse.

McCree had reached for Genji and that first burning, tearing sense of pain had rippled across his conscious. He had reached for Genji with his left hand, like he had on the bed, Genji with a hand covering his cock, head thrown back.

His left hand.

He had tried to sit up, weight on his hands. But he'd overbalanced. Something was off. Was desperately wrong.

Genji had been screaming and McCree--in pain himself but not sure why, rocked from the noise in his head the explosion so close to him, disoriented--had wiggled on his belly to Genji. Like a worm.

Face pressed to Genji's shoulder. Right hand clutching Genji's arm.

It's okay it's not that bad it's okay Genji Genji Genji

Nonsense. Repeated on end.

Genji's insides like snakes, spilling out of the tear in his belly.

Blood on Genji's face.

It's okay Genji don't look I'm here Genji it's okay you're okay I promise I promise

McCree hadn't been able to get them standing. Useless without both arms. The pain rocking through him suddenly, the knowledge. Without both arms. Crippled for life.

In the span of a second.

Bizarrely, now, fifteen years later, McCree wonders if he'd scanned that clearing if he would have found his arm.

McCree closes his eyes. Touches where the prosthetic clips on. The piece of wood that's been permanently soldered to him. The phantom creeping he feels in his fingers is diminished when Hanzo touches him. A hand on the knee. A small reassuring squeeze.

"Genji might be dead," McCree confesses.

"Genji is not dead."

"He was real bad off, last I saw him," McCree says. Eyes still closed.

The hand on his knee squeezes again. "My brother is not dead, Jesse McCree."

"But, Hanzo, he was--"

"I would know."

"When we find Reyes, he can help us find Angela. 'S her we need to talk to. She was the one--"

"What happened?"

"Explosion," McCree says, tersely. He can't do it again. Go over each agonizing detail. They're here to stay now anyway, flipping through his mind at half-speed. "Tried to blow the train door. Caught in the blast."

Hanzo is tight-lipped. Hand an unbearable pressure, digging into McCree's knee. The only outward sign of his distress.

"And Genji?" he asks.

"Gut-shot. Cut up. I don't remember much." Lies, he remembers it all with terrible clarity.

Finally standing, dragging Genji with him. Wincing. Crying with every step. Genji barely conscious, lolling against McCree. Muttering in broken Japanese. Hand plastered to his gut. The only thing steady about him.

"I left him. Some farm house. First place we came to. Any further and he would have died. Gave them some bullshit story. Stage coach accident."

"And then?"

"I went on. Had to."

"And you never went back?" This is the first time Hanzo sounds coldly critical. His hand still on McCree's knee. It feels like abandonment.

"Reyes got in touch with Angela. Sent her. I dunno what she did."

Because he had run away. McCree had stolen into the night with his new arm and his gun and his cowardice. He hadn't been able to face what he had done. Could barely face it now.

But he owed it to Hanzo.

To Genji.

A single second--

Hanzo's hand, squeezes once more, tender. He's staring at McCree's lips--

And everything can change--

Forgiveness, understanding, duty. It doesn't fucking matter anymore--

A single second--

McCree leans forward, brushes his lips against Hanzo's. Groans quietly against Hanzo's mouth. It doesn't matter who is on the train, who could be watching, what this could mean. Hanzo's lips press back against his, warm, dry. Inviting. Duty, redemption. It doesn't matter--

And everything can change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there it is. That was a rough one, but the people who have commented have def helped to propel this work along at breakneck pace. I don't generally respond to comments, but I read them all and I thank you and love them!!
> 
> Any questions, concerns, mistakes found, or complaints just lemme know!
> 
> Tags have been updated


	5. Chapter 5

Hanzo is asleep when the train makes its last stop for water before Salt Lake City. McCree almost doesn't want to wake him, is loathe to lose Hanzo's weight on his shoulder, the quiet ease the two have fallen into for the last few hours.

But they need to get this show under way.

"Hanzo," McCree says, voice pitched low, shaking Hanzo lightly by the shoulder. "Hanzo, time t' wake. This is our stop."

Hanzo murmurs something. Sniffs once, a blurry, sleepy little noise. It isn't adorable at all. McCree grins, allows himself to swipe his fingers through Hanzo's hair once. Silky strands against his flesh.

Then Hanzo is awake, frowning slightly at the touch. Head craning back just a bit.

"We have arrived?"

McCree shrugs. "Close enough to it. Grab your stuff." McCree glances behind them. The man who had been sleeping earlier is gone, off to another car perhaps, ditched at an earlier stop. McCree can't be sure, doesn't think it matters anyway.

"We are not there yet?" Hanzo asks again, concerned. That line between his eyebrows again. Expressive despite the stereotype. Genji had been the same way.

"It's okay," McCree says, squeezing past Hanzo and out into the aisle, reaching up to pull his bag down. Handing Hanzo his parcel. His luggage. Most of the people in front of them are still engaged in their own conversations, others have found the same lull Hanzo had. One woman, maybe the laugher from earlier, is looking at them.

Nothing but passing curiosity.

But still it makes McCree nervous.

Luckily, Hanzo seems to have gotten with the program. He fixes his hat on his head, fishes McCree's out from under the seat and passes it to him.

And then they are off.

Slipping off the train and into the gathering dusk. McCree meets the woman's gaze as they go, tips his hat and gives her a wink. His throat feels tight; apprehension he doesn't quite know how to place.

Instincts he's learned long ago not to ignore.

The water stop is not even really a proper town. One dusty street that runs behind the station. A few empty pens along the side of it for the transportation of cattle. It's got a saloon because any place that's anywhere seems to have one of those. A tiny general store; closed now. An equally tiny hotel. The buildings seems to slouch in the heat, a step or two above ramshackle.

But it will do for the night.

McCree steers toward the hotel, Hanzo a shadow at his heels. He lingers outside until the train they came in on gives a shrill parting whistle. Pulls off into the night.

The street is mostly deserted. One man, stinking drunk if McCree had to guess, is slumped against the front of the saloon. Hat pulled low over his face, collar pulled up. Asleep. Passed out. Oblivious to them regardless.

"Gimme your money," McCree says, reaching out to take Hanzo's package.

"What?"

"Place like this, don't wanna seem like you got too much. Gimme a ten, two of you got it. And put the cufflinks in your pocket."

Hanzo nods, obeys. He presses two bills into McCree's hands. Crisp money, too new. McCree crumples it in his fist while Hanzo slips the cufflinks off. Tucks them and his wallet into his vest pocket.

"Got a cigarette?"

Hanzo nods again. Fishes the case out of his pack. He pulls one for both of them. Lights them.

"Are you nervous?" Hanzo asks. The tip of his cigarette traces the words in the gloom.

"Yes." No point in lying.

"Reyes is here?"

"No. Not here. Prolly close though. Always been a creature a habit. Backwater little place like this is the perfect place to start askin' round."

"You are sure he is in Utah?"

"Yeah." McCree says. He draws the smoke into his lungs. Holds it until the burn is too bad, lets the smoke out in a plume.

"How do you know?"

"How d'you know Genji is alive?"

Hanzo stares at him. Eyes narrowed. Because of the dark, McCree figures. Or maybe McCree has tweaked another nerve. Somewhat hard to tell.

"A feeling," Hanzo says, finally. Shaking his head. The cigarette is trembling just slightly between his fingers.

"Genji tell you 'bout Gabe?"

Hanzo shrugs. "He didn't use many names. Not for anyone but you."

It makes more sense now, how Hanzo found him. A real name to search for.

He wonders if Genji had sent him the posters, somewhat thrilled at the little edge of fame. The Gambler and the Sparrow. McCree's scowling face. Genji a slant-eyed stranger staring up from the page.

The bum by the bar has begun to stir, McCree watches the throes with half an eye. It's time to go.

But his cigarette is almost killed, down to the last few draws and Hanzo is standing so close to him in the dark. McCree places a hand at the small of Hanzo's back. Traces a little circle there with his thumb.

"Gabe was in the war. Back in the day. Real war hero. He and his battalion. Killed a lot of folks, these real heroes," McCree draws out the word.

"Your country has had many wars of late," Hanzo says. "Men die in war."

McCree smiles, touches his hat brim. An old habit. The cigarette is done. McCree lets it fall to the ground, grounds the end out with his heel. He plucks Hanzo's out of Hanzo's mouth and finishes that one as well. One deep draw. The end of it still slightly damp from Hanzo's lips.

He doesn't know where to begin with this history either. The bigotry that makes America run. Chinamen, men who look like Hanzo, hollowing out the mountains. Gabe being Mexican. An Apache boy, beaten to death for grinning at the wrong white man.

Hanzo's first real taste of good ole American racism and he'd ruined the guy's face for life.

He won't understand it.

How could he? What does a series of stupid American wars mean to Japan? What does it mean to Hanzo that if Gabe had been born just a few years earlier he would have been facing down an American musket instead of holding it?

It means nothing.

Hadn't meant anything to Genji, either.

"We should go inside," McCree says. He drops his hand from Hanzo's back, grazes his knuckles against Hanzo's ass. Just because he can.

"We are going to start here?" Hanzo tilts his head to look at the hotel. Looks over his shoulder to the saloon. "Would not there be better?"

"Nah," McCree says. Thinking of Hanzo and the broken glass. Hanzo with his hands around the man's throat. Lucky it had only been three on two. They don't need another incident. "We start in the morning. Need horses. A tent. Hotel's as good a place as any for basic information."

The hotel is just as run down inside as it is out. Rickety furniture. Dingy gas lights, smudged glass. A kid behind what McCree would call the reception counter, except there's no counter there at all. A spindly legged table, an account book.

"Howdy there," McCree says to the kid. Leaning forward. He's afraid to place any weight on the table, can only imagine cracking under him. "Lookin' fer a room. One night."

The girl looks from McCree to Hanzo and back. She's frowning. Hanzo is frowning. A serious air between the two of them. She's got dark skin, darker hair. Brown from more than just the desert sun.

"You seen someone like him before?" McCree asks, gesturing with his thumb at Hanzo. Using his wooden hand.

She shakes her head, gaze following McCree's prosthetic. Eyes wide. Quite the pair of strangers they make. Impressionable.

It's not a good thing.

But it's done now.

"Your pa around? Someone that runs this place?"

"I run this place," she says. Defiant tone. Frown back in place. Arms crossed.

McCree smiles. He can't help it. Another piece of his past, excavated before him. Dug up and put on display.

"Then write me up for a room, little miss."

She looks down at the ledger in front of her. Back up at him. "One room's five. One bed and a fire place. Wood's extra." She makes a face. "Don't got no rooms with two beds."

She can't be more than ten, but she's got a look in her eye like someone older. What's McCree really know about kids these days anyway.

"Got an extra cot somewhere? Mattress pallet. I ain't payin' for two rooms."

She frowns. Scribbles in the book. Slanted, child's hand-writing. McCree is impressed. Tongue peeking between her lips, calculating. "Seven," she says, finally. "For the extra blankets. For the cot."

Seven for a rip off, McCree thinks. But he nods. Hands her one of the crumpled bills.

"Can you make change?"

She sighs. Eyes McCree warily. Worldly wise. "You wait here." She says. Then she's hopping off the chair and slipping into the back.

"Smart kid," McCree observes, glancing over at Hanzo.

"She is too young to be here alone."

McCree smiles, chuckles. "Family business, prolly."

Hanzo's shoulders stiffen at that. A wounded little motion. Hands at his sides. "And none of ours." A clear enough tell. McCree's digging is not appreciated.

He's going to tease, needle Hanzo just a little further, but then the girl is back, pushing out of the door she came from. Still frowning. Serious.

She places the bills on the table. McCree picks them up. "Thank ya kindly," he says, tipping his hat at her. She blushes a little at that, scowling down at the book.

She has a necklace on. McCree hadn't noticed it before. It lays flat on her chest. Indian work. Spirals and beads.

"Pretty necklace," McCree says.

The girl glances down at her chest. Blushing still, a reddish pallor to her dark skin. "I can show you to yer rooms," she says. She's holding a set of keys, heavy and brass, clinking together in her grip. 

She stops at a closet by the stairs, sorts through the ring until she gets to the right key. The pallet, a sad thing rough spun wool and hay, is bigger than she is. Without asking, Hanzo takes it, balances it under his arm with his wrapped parcel. McCree takes the extra blanket she passes out next. Threadbare thing, faded blue patchwork. Not worth the money.

She leads them upstairs, two flights, and half-way down the next hall. The building is quiet, much like the street outside. Few signs of life. Bad omens.

"Hey, little miss," McCree says, once they've reached the room. The girl opening the door for them. The heavy keys jingling in her hands. "You ever heard of the Reaper?"

She looks up at him. Big eyes, dark lashes. "It's a spook," she says, "lies. Ain't no such thing."

McCree grins, glances over at Hanzo, to where Hanzo is laying out the cot. Not paying attention to them. A shame. "But you've heard of him?"

The girl shrugs. Shakes her head. "I dunno."

"Somebody tell you about him?"

"He ain't a him. He's an it." she says. "'Sides I was real little when she told me. I ain't dumb."

"Who told you?"

"Somebody. Indian girl. Mama told me not to talk to them no more."

McCree tucks his thumbs into his belt loops. "Okay," he says. He shouldn't be drawing it out, bad enough she'll remember them. Too outlandish to be forgotten. "Thanks again," he says. He wants to pat her on the head, ruffle her hair. But he doesn't.

Enough damage for one night.

He closes the door as she walks down the hall. Locks it for good measure. He steps over the cot to drop the blanket on the bed. His bag he kicks under, boots right next to it. Peacekeeper on the nightstand. Under his hat. Within reach, but not obvious.

Little ticks from the old days, resurfacing.

"I thought the blanket was for me," Hanzo says. McCree looks over at him. Kneeling on the cot.

"You ain't gonna sleep on the floor, Hanzo."

"I have slept on worse."

"I don't want you ta sleep on the floor, okay?"

"Because we have a big day tomorrow?" Hanzo asks. "An early start?"

Such American phrases. Learned from Genji, no doubt.

"Because I wanna sleep with you."

McCree had denied himself that last night. Had let Hanzo sleep in the rented room while McCree cleaned the blood and glass up. Had let Hanzo sleep while he'd returned to his own quarters, afraid of pushing too hard. Of seeming too needy.

"Will you take your clothes off?" Hanzo asks.

"Do you want me to?"

He shouldn't. They aren't safe here. And while there shouldn't be anyone following them, shouldn't be anything to be afraid of, McCree can't shake the feeling.

The man on the train.

The drunk by the bar.

The man with the mustache, face dirty with his friend's blood.

"Yes," Hanzo says in an exhale. Forced out of him, twisted under his breath. Like the confession hurts him.

McCree swallows. Stands. Unbuttons his shirt first, lays it to the side. Watches Hanzo studying him. He scratches the hair on his chest, his fingertips covered by the thick mat of it.

He's never been a self-conscious person. Never had reason to be. Even now, fifteen years out of the game and he's still pretty fit. Hard muscle under a slight layer of fat. Defined arms. Corded shoulders.

He runs his hand down the trail of hair to where it disappears into his slacks. Undoes the buckle of his belt, leather sliding between his fingers. Hanzo watches him, immobile except for his chest, rising and falling with his breathing. Picking up speed just slightly as McCree goes.

"Wait," he says as McCree starts in on the buttons of his pants.

McCree stops.

McCree waits.

"Will you tell me about the men you used to fuck?" Hanzo asks. "The ones Genji watched you with."

"They were just guys," McCree swallows, fingers twitching against his pants. Flesh palm sweating through the material. "Did you keep those letters?"

"Every one."

"Then what do you want to know?"

"Did you pick them because they reminded you of Genji?"

"A little." No point in lying. "No one is really like Genji, though."

"I am like Genji." Hanzo says. There's a finality to it. Some lingering tone McCree can't quite place.

"Only a little." McCree swallows again. His mouth is dry, desert heat seeping through the walls, nerves setting him on edge. His real hand twitches, fingers flexing against his thigh. "Not like this you aren't."

Genji could have never been called a virgin. Even his first year in America, he'd spent plenty of time loitering in cat houses. Taking a different sort of pleasure from the women there than McCree did. It had been Genji who proposed watching McCree that first time, Genji who had done most of the talking. Genji who had baited the trap; McCree, love-sick puppy that he was, had wandered into it blindly.

"What'd you do?" McCree asks, when Hanzo still hasn't spoken. Hanzo's gaze boring a hole through his own. Hard to match that stare, but McCree does it.

"With what?"

"The letters. When you read them. Did you touch yourself?"

Hanzo's gaze drops to McCree's throat, his waistline. Back up. He nods. "Yes."

"Thinking of Genji?"

A transgression. A sin. Something McCree should not ask. Should not condone.

Hanzo doesn't look offended by the question. "No. I did not think of him."

"You thought of me?"

A sigh, an edge of frustration. Hanzo closes his eyes. "Yes. Genji was very vivid in his word choice."

McCree grins. Finishes undoing his pants and pushes them down his legs. Kicks them under the bed with the rest of his shit. His cock hangs heavy between his legs, half-hard already. "You think about me fuckin' you?" McCree asks. Voice thick with arousal now, drawn low in his throat.

Hanzo makes a vague gesture, expression breaking, eyes opening just the slightest. Gaze raking over McCree's form, honed in on his dick like a magnet. "I don't really know how. Genji wrote how you moaned, sweating, grunting. How you watched him. Rutted and watched him." Hanzo's hands are gripping his own knees. "He thought of me, while you thought of him."

"He wanted to watch you fuck someone?"

Hanzo shakes his head. Sharp motions. His shoulders are shaking. And he's still kneeling on that fucking cot. Hasn't moved an inch.

When Hanzo finally speaks, his voice is barely a whisper. "He wanted to watch you fuck me."

It's fucked up. Perverted beyond just incest. Something deeper, more profoundly disturbing.

McCree shouldn't find it as hot as he does.

He crosses the distance between them. Sinks to floor in front of Hanzo. He wants to kiss to be bruising, full of promise, instead it's soft, almost awkward. His hands cupping Hanzo's chin. Thumbs in Hanzo's beard.

Their mouths move together, in synch without trying. Hanzo's arms sliding around McCree's shoulders, bending at the elbows to trace his fingers down McCree's spine.

"Were you saving yourself for this?" McCree asks. Lips on Hanzo's cheek, running along his jaw, down his neck. "For me?"

Hanzo's Adam's apple bobs under his tongue as Hanzo speaks. "The opportunity never arose in Japan." He pulls the two of them down, leaning back on the cot, accepting the bulk of McCree's weight. "But I did not spend much time looking for it either."

"Is that why you're here?"

"You are not so important, Jesse McCree." Hanzo admonishes. Though much as he had on the train, Hanzo uses physicality to take away the sting of his words. Hooks his legs over McCree's hips to grind against McCree's cock.

"How d'ya want me, darlin'?"

"Call me Hanzo. I like the way you say it." It's not a lie, but it isn't the complete truth, either. Hanzo looks away as he says it. Blushing.

"I'm not thinkin' of anyone but you, Hanzo."

The blush deepens, spreads down Hanzo's neck and into the open collar of his shirt. He's overdressed.

McCree works at the buttons, tosses the vest to the side. His personal reward for being right.

"I still like the way it sounds when you say it." Hanzo says. Arching his back as McCree pushes his shirt open and off.

"Hanzo," McCree says against the skin on Hanzo's chest. "God you're so good, Hanzo. So perfect." The praise earns him a groan. "You memorize all the letters?"

"All the ones about you, yes," Hanzo says, nodding. Eyes closed again. Too many confessions for one night. McCree levels their combined weight onto his knees and his wooden arm; runs his human hand over Hanzo's burning cheeks. Grazes his knuckles across Hanzo's lips.

He wants to get Hanzo's trousers off, but it's tough with the way Hanzo's legs are locked around his waist. Feet pressing against his ass as Hanzo thrusts up against him, pushing down to deepen the contact. The material scratchy against McCree's hips, his dick, chafing in a way that would be uncomfortable if he weren't so turned on.

"Recite one for me." McCree says. He scrapes his teeth up Hanzo's sternum. Latches onto Hanzo's neck, biting down just hard enough to bruise.

Hanzo bucks harder, voice stuttering in his throat. "I have done something bad, brother," he says, skin shifting between McCree's teeth. "Would you like to hear it? Jesse's dick is so thick, brother. Would you like to know how I know? I watched him fuck a man today. A man older than either of us, a man your age." Hanzo's voice catches. Hand in McCree's hair. "He had dark hair and Jesse held it, pulled it while he mounted him. He bared that man's throat for me to see while he pounded him. Brother. Did you read that? Are you reading this, brother? His dick was so big I did not think he would fit. How could he fit?"

McCree presses his flesh hand against Hanzo's stomach, heel of his palm edging the material of Hanzo's pants. He sits up. Looking at Hanzo laying ravaged below him. Hanzo's sweaty hair, pupils gone wide. Bruise already forming where his neck meets his shoulder, marring just before his tattoo starts.

"He looked at me like a wolf, brother," Hanzo says. Licking his lips. McCree thumbs the buttons of his trousers open. One by one. "He looked at me like an animal, who wanted to devour me whole. Should I let him, brother? Can I let him?"

"Will you let me?" McCree asks. He pushes at Hanzo's knees, encouraging them to loosen enough to get Hanzo's pants tugged down. Tossed away with his vest. Hanzo's cock juts proudly away from him, curling back toward his stomach. McCree fingers the foreskin and Hanzo shudders beneath him.

"Will you let me?" McCree asks again, pushing the skin down, completely exposing Hanzo to him. His thumbs pushes against the slit, presses down so that the slow pulse of liquid spills over his fist, down over his knuckles.

The noise Hanzo makes is more like a sob than anything else. His hips straining up and up.

"Anything," Hanzo says, finally, voice breaking over the word. "Eighteen years I have wanted you, Jesse McCree." He tosses his head to the side, hair fanned out on the cot under him. McCree's metal and wood fingers against his lips, palm pressing against his chin.

A long time to wait.

McCree pushes his fingers into Hanzo's mouth. Wishes distantly he could feel the warmth, the wetness. Hanzo groans again, around them, tongue slipping past his lips to chase them as McCree thrusts them in and out. Eyeing McCree from under his lashes. Grey hair dashed across his temples. 

"Christ," McCree mutters. "Lookit you. Hanzo, fuck. I don't think I've ever seen anyone like you." Another gush against the fingers he still has on Hanzo's dick, precome sliding messily along the length. McCree adjusts his grip, tightens it, really giving Hanzo something to fuck into.

"I want it to be so perfect for you, Hanzo. So good. I'm gonna make it so good. Darlin'," he opens his hand enough to slot his own cock in there. Presses their erections together tightly. Almost too much so.

Hanzo makes another inhuman sound, groaning low in his throat. McCree leans down, moves his hand just enough to make room for his lips, catching Hanzo's. Pushing his tongue in. Fucking Hanzo's mouth in a counter-rhythm to the movement of Hanzo's hips.

"Come for me, Hanzo," McCree pants, lips just far enough from Hanzo's to breath the words between them. "It's okay. I gotcha, Hanzo, come for me."

And Hanzo does. Gloriously. One hand arched on McCree's shoulder, one hand fisted in the flimsy material of the cot. Hanzo comes and comes. Shaking. Eyes squeezed shut. Mouth moving soundlessly, throat shaking with every ragged in-drawn breath. It seems to go on forever.

McCree kind of wishes it would.

His hand is soaked. But his job is far from finished. He lets go of Hanzo's cock, grips only his own. Covered in Hanzo's release, the glide is easy. He strokes himself, furiously. Holding his weight with his wooden elbow. Forehead pressed against Hanzo's neck. Hanzo's hand slides from his shoulder, tugs at his beard.

McCree looks at him.

Says Hanzo's name as he comes undone. His second orgasm in as many days. He does better this time, stays on top of it. Eyes locked with Hanzo's. Whining through the aftershocks. Muscles shaking from being held up for so long.

McCree lowers himself, slowly. Distributing his weight across Hanzo's torso. Breathing into Hanzo's sweaty hair, across Hanzo's cheek.

Hanzo's hands stroke his neck, his shoulder. Through his hair. Gentle, soothing.

"You cannot sleep like this," Hanzo says, turning his face just slightly. McCree is too close to see his expression, but his tone sounds like he's smiling. "It is too hot for this."

He's not wrong. But McCree is too tired to move. He smiles, lips catching on his teeth. Still kiss-swollen. "I dunno that I can move, sugar. Done tuckered me out."

"Don't you dare fall asleep, McCree." Hanzo's hands bat at him, playful still. "We shall wake up attached if you do not move."

Too late for that. McCree wants to say he's already attached. Was at first sight. Eighteen years, that's what Hanzo had said. Nearly half a fucking lifetime.

McCree rolls off him. Lands heavily on his back. The cot provides very little cushioning, McCree hisses as he sits up, rubbing at his back.

Hanzo is looking at him. Smiling his little half-smile. There are bruises on his hips, one on the insides of this thighs like a brand. The one on his neck.

In the morning, they'll have to find Reyes. They'll have to start the search. And then hopefully Genji won't be far behind.

McCree swallows down a sudden lump of apprehension. Guilt.

He pulls Hanzo against him, kisses Hanzo's temple, Hanzo's cheek. Hanzo's lips. Slowly. Lingering.

Maybe not hopefully.

Not hopefully at all.

They find Genji and then what?

'We shall be attached.'

McCree closes his eyes, still leaning against Hanzo. Hanzo's hand on his knee. Hanzo's beard scratchy against his chest.

Too late, he thinks, chin nestled in Hanzo's hair.

Too god damn late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For what it's worth, I really tried to write plot this time...
> 
> But then I got sidetracked...Gabe incoming soon, probably more porn too idk this chapter really just got away from me. This work is really just spiralling out of my control lol
> 
> Anyway hope you like. Comments, concerns, complaints leave em below!!


	6. Chapter 6

When McCree wakes up, he is alone on the bed.

He has a moment of panic. Arm sliding over the space where Hanzo had been. The crumpled sheets are warm. He has not been gone long.

"I am here," Hanzo's voice says. He's on the cot again. McCree flushes, embarrassed at being caught.

"I would not leave you in the night," Hanzo says when McCree turns to look at him, "but it was too hot. You cling like an octopus."

McCree smiles, ruffles his own sleep-ratty hair. "I don't even know what that is."

Hanzo frowns. Scattered around him are disassembled pieces of something. The wrapping for the parcel is folded by the head of the cot. A quiver of arrows on Hanzo's other side.

A bow.

The disassembled pieces make some sort of high tech bow.

"You been carrying that around like that?" McCree asks, getting off the bed to squat on the floor next to Hanzo.

"It seemed smarter, than carrying it in the open. Don't want to seem like you have too much," Hanzo says, tipping his head in McCree's direction. "Your words."

"And they're true." McCree pulls one of the arrows out of the quiver. Turns it in his hands.

The tip is made of metal, thin, but deadly sharp. Not much at all like the stone arrow heads the Indians trade. Not nearly as organic. He presses his human thumb against it, testing. Hisses when it pricks him with very little pressure.

"You should be careful," Hanzo says, mildly. He lays aside the piece he had been fiddling with to take McCree's hand in his. Wiping the small drop of blood away with his knuckle. Another does not bead to take its place. Barely a scratch.

"This stuff's a lot different than the ones we got here," McCree says. "Fancy. You know how to use it?"

Hanzo smiles, ruefully. A tight little pull of his lips against his teeth. "Yes, McCree, I know how to use it."

"Wasn't trynna hit a nerve," McCree says. "I'm impressed. Never been much good with a bow myself."

Hanzo snaps two of the pieces together. "Neither was Genji. He always said the bow is the coward's weapon. To be able to kill without seeing the glint of death in their eyes--,"

"Is dishonorable," McCree finishes, nodding. "He felt the same 'bout rifles. Got into a couple scraps with the Deadlocks over that."

Hanzo's hair is up again, yellow ribbon keeping the spiky little ponytail in place. McCree touches the back of his neck, palm curling around the front of his throat.

It's time to go.

The last arrangements have to be made.

"Will you wait here," McCree asks, "while I hit the general store? We'll leave soon as I'm done."

Hanzo nods. "You will be back soon?"

"Yeah," McCree says, "of course." He grins, lopsided. "Promise, darlin', be back in two shakes."

And really, McCree should know better than to make promises like that. Jinxing it.

Asking for trouble.

But Hanzo's expression relaxes when McCree says it. He leans into McCree's grip and kisses McCree on the cheek. McCree is sure his facial hair itches, but Hanzo just smiles, full and genuine.

McCree fishes his pants out from where they were discarded under the bed. Throws on the same plaid button down too. The clothes smell like his sweat, a heady, musky scent; but McCree doesn't have it in him to care. He clips his belt on, adjusts Peacekeeper on his hip.

"Don't answer the door," McCree says, standing at the threshold with his hand on the knob. "Not for anyone but me okay?"

Hanzo nods once. Bare shoulders. Bare chest.

"And get dressed. Just...in case."

Hanzo looks down at himself. Nods again. An obedient streak that Genji never had.

McCree forces himself to leave, the urge to linger is too strong. Dangerous. The hotel seems just as empty as it had the night before. There is a man at the ledger table when McCree gets downstairs. His arms folded upon the surface, head between them.

Fast asleep.

McCree considers waking him, thinks better of it. He leaves the hotel as silently as he can. Outside the heat is stifling, but McCree barely notices. He hurries to the store, preoccupied with what he needs to purchase.

A tent. A lantern. Probably more cooking oil. Things that would have been too bulky to travel with from Santa Fe. He has packed one bed roll, but nights in the desert can get cold, even now in the height of summer. Another could never hurt.

He stops by the bounty wall. He shouldn't. But he can't help it.

He has so much to buy still.

But he has to look.

The sketched faces staring down at him. Poster after poster. Every one of the Wild Bunch. Cassidy and Sundance and The Kid. A few of the Dalton Gang. Famous names and faces. And there, in the corner, faded with time, Gabriel Reyes. The poster calls him Reaper. His square jaw and scowl are in place.

McCree keeps his hands in his pockets. Bites his lip. No poster for he or Genji. Too long gone, most likely.

But Gabe had been out of the spotlight even longer

Had been.

It's been a long time.

McCree approaches the counter.

"Got any cigars?" He asks. His fingers, both real and phantom, itch for something. He needs something to occupy his mouth before he does something even more shit dumb.

Like this:

"Those wanted posters," he says while the clerk pulls out a box of cigars from behind the counter.

The clerk glances over at them. Frowning.

"What about 'em?"

"Ain't they a little outta date?"

"Not so far as I know," the clerk says. He passes McCree one of the cigars. "You know something I don't, stranger."

"Nah. Dunno," McCree says. He flips the cigar between his human fingers. Stubbornly keeps his wooden hand at his side. "Always thought Reaper was just a story."

"The Reaper? Pretty bad story," the clerk says. He watches the cigar twirl. Produces a box of matches. "Where you from they told you he was a story?"

"South."

"Well, they must be dumb as a donkey's ass down south. Useless as tits on a fellow."

"You're tellin' me this guy actually killed a hundred Pinkerton's." McCree plays the number up. Gabe telling the story about his years after the war and the number rounds out to be more like seventy.

"Pinkerton's, sure. But that's not what he's famous for," the clerk says, waving his hand. Small town gossip, eager to be the one to share the story with the ignorant out of towner.

McCree's gut had been right. Usually is. "And what's he famous for?" McCree asks, he already knows, but he wants to hear it from another source.

"Every job he runs, every bit of work he takes, he leaves corpses," the man says, leaning in. Conspiratorial now. Eyes bright. "Not just law. Not just civilians. His own partners. His own people. Greedy bastard."

"How d'ya know he's shooting 'em? And it ain't just the law."

The clerk shrugs. "Survivors see him. Talk. I mean just last week he hit--,"

"Last week?" McCree asks. Hand up. The cigar burns down between his fingers. A waste of a good smoke. But McCree suddenly feels like he can't breath.

Last week?

It's nearly impossible.

Gabe had been out of the scene for two years before picking up Genji and McCree. Had stayed as far away from the dirty end of their jobs as he could. Kept his name clear of it.

The Reaper, fifteen years ago, had been as good as dead.

"'S what I said. Last Tuesday, the Reaper takes a run through Dragon Canyon with five men in tow. They hit Silver City, ride off with over three thousand in gold and copper. The sheriff gives chase, finds the remains of the Reaper's camp. Three dead men. Shot in the head, sitting around the fire pit. Still holding tin plates and cups. Horses still tied to the posts. Bodies already scavenged by the coyotes."

McCree can't believe what he's hearing. The possibility of an imposter is always there. But the scenario fits. Hit and run. Sudden breakout robberies. It's always been Gabe's style.

"There any reservations 'round here?" McCree asks, suddenly. The clerk stands up straighter.

Clearly confused. "Got a group a Shoshone, out to the west. Three days ride, if ya gotta horse. But why you--"

"Ain't gotta horse. Need two though," McCree says. In a rush now. Tuesday a week ago. That's nine days. Still time to catch up.

"There's a horse ranch, couple miles out." The clerk says, shaking his head. "But that's due north."

"It don't matter," McCree says. He's emptying his pockets onto the counter. Six one dollar bills, a five and Hanzo's ten. The little welcome bell above the door jingles. McCree ignores it. "What can I get for this?" He asks. "Need a tent and bedroll." He squints. "Rasher a bacon. Oil. Much as this'll buy me."

The clerk picks the money off the counter. Counts each bill. Holds each to the light. Inspecting. Taking his sweet time about it.

McCree feels his insides twist. Apprehension.

An old man is standing by the bounty wall. Looking over the posters as McCree had. He looks over at McCree.

The clerk apparently has found the bills sufficient. He shuffles the money under the counter, begins writing out McCree's order.

"Don' like to be rushed, stranger." He says, by way of explanation. "Don't do anyone no good, runnin' round like that. A tent you said. Bedroll."

"And a lantern."

The clerk looks up. Clicks his tongue. "No bacon then. Not enough." The clerk is smiling.

"Fine. Forget the bacon."

The man by the wall is still staring. Maybe not as old as his hair suggests. His face is mostly unlined.

"Don' know what's got you so bothered?" The clerk teases, crossing from behind the counter to collect the items McCree has requested. "What, think you're slick? Gonna head out to catch the Reaper? That the rush?"

McCree blanches. His poker face hasn't been truly tested in years, and here he is, fucking it all up royally. The number one rule for him in Deadlock: keep your fucking mouth shut, Jesse McCree.

The bell jingles again.

McCree glances over to the bounty wall.

The man is gone.

The clerk is still taking his god forsaken time. McCree gets his own lantern from the one's hanging on the wall. Snatches the folded tent when it is pushed to him.

The bed roll takes longer. The clerk lingering over every snap.

"Have a good day, stranger," he says, grinning when McCree grabs the last of it. A small flask of oil. Better than nothing.

"Yeah," McCree growls, stalking to the door, back out into the heat. "Thanks a fuckin' lot, partner."

Hanzo is ready to go by the time he gets back to the room. Bow slung over his shoulder. Quiver at his hip. Once they've got the horses, they'll have to figure something else out.

If they even get to the horses.

The man's blue eyes, stuck on McCree's face. Studying. Studying.

It could mean so many things.

Hanzo and he divide the load before they depart. Working together wordlessly. Like Genji and McCree would have.

Good partners.

Destiny.

McCree adjusts the folded tent canvas on his back. Straps his bag to it. Hanzo takes the bed rolls, stacked and tied on top of his own.

Not ideal for travel, it'll be too much weight long-term, but it'll do for the couple miles they have to hike.

It will have to do.

**

"Not very much like Genji's letters, huh?" McCree laughs as they crest the third hill out of the city.

It's hot, he's sweating.

But he doesn't have it as bad as Hanzo. McCree is used to these Western summer heats, never really known anything but. The sun and buzzing bugs are just a part of his life.

Hanzo though.

Poor Hanzo is already sunburned. Across his nose, his cheeks. Even if his hair weren't up, the little bowler hat he has brought would do little to block the rays.

McCree had offered him his own hat, but Hanzo had refused. Stubborn. Genji had always looked good in cowboy hats. McCree is a little disappointed they don't seem to share that fashion choice.

"Genji did not mention the heat," Hanzo says. "It does not get like this in Japan."

"Don't got deserts in Japan is why," McCree says. Laughing again.

The landscape rolls up and away. Steady hills. It'll be easier on horseback, probably.

"You got horses in Japan?" McCree asks.

"In the military, yes." Hanzo adjusts the bag on his shoulders.

McCree smiles. "Genji was pretty skittish with the horses at first. But he got used to 'em pretty quick."

"Genji has always been good with animals," Hanzo says. Eyes lingering on McCree's. "Strays."

"That an insult?"

"A quote."

"He call me a stray in his letters?"

"Animal terms. Doglike. Mongrel. He liked that you were like that. Wild. No one we knew in Japan was that way."

"Did ya ever write him back?"

Hanzo shakes his head. "Nowhere to write back to. Genji's letters arrived postmarked from place to place. All over. Dated weeks back. Dated months. Where could I send my replies?"

"Musta been tough."

"I was just happy to hear from him at all." Hanzo looks down. McCree follows his gaze to the trail they're on. The upward glide of it. Another hill.

"Tell me, McCree. You say you parted with my brother poorly. You were fighting, at the time? Before the explosion?"

"Yeah...we shouldn'ta. I shouldn't have..."

"I am not asking for blame. You and my brother did not fight very often."

"Not often at all."

Hanzo smiles. "Genji and I fought all the time. Before he left, that is. Once he was gone, I truly never thought I would hear from him again."

McCree watches the way Hanzo's shoulders curl with the words. More sunburn on the back of his neck.

"I thought, for a long time that he hated me. Like he hates our father. The asshole. He used to say I was so much like him." Hanzo straightens, looks at McCree over his shoulder. "Am I an asshole, Jesse McCree?"

"I don't really know. Genji could be kinda a dick too."

Hanzo smiles, sly. "Avoiding the question does not make you nicer."

"I guess I just don't know enough about you to judge."

"Fair, I suppose."

"What did Genji tell you about me?"

"He said you were restless. Unstoppable. Stubborn." Hanzo switches his bow, from one shoulder to the other. "You like fish, though Genji says that no one here cooks it properly. He said that fish here is like shoe leather. Tough and dry."

McCree grins. "Deadlocks weren't exactly world class cooks," he admits. "But we tried."

"Genji lamented the food here. Many letters were about the food. 'All the meat,' he would write, 'how in the world can Americans eat so much meat?'"

"You've been here all of, what? Three days? You sound like you agree with him."

"I do agree with him. All the food I have had is awful." Hanzo says, he elbows McCree's side. Lightly, teasing. So different than the frowning stoicism he exhibits around others. "Your liquor was good though," Hanzo says. "The dragon fire. That was excellent."

McCree shrugs. "It was Genji's recipe."

"I know. He wrote me about it. One of his last letters."

"What was the last one you got?"

"It's dated December. But I did not get it until mid-February."

"Of '84?"

"Yes."

McCree frowns. "So long ago."

"I think he was drunk. The writing was slanted. He talked about a bar fight, you and he beating some man at a whore house, running him out. Genji liked how noble you were."

"An honorable thief is what he'd call me. Did call me."

They've reached the top of the last hill. Below them, in the valley, is a ranch-style home. Horses penned outside. Just as the clerk had said.

"You got any money left, Hanzo?"

"A bit." He's squinting down at the farm. "Genji never told you?"

"Told me?"

"He never had to rob banks. He didn't have to live that sort of a criminal life. Back home, in Japan, we are rich. Money has never been an issue for us."

"Oh..." McCree says. He doesn't know what to do with the knowledge. Deep in him, somewhere, all along he had known. Genji's flippant way with the money he had, someone with little regard for its worth. Genji's down the nose attitude toward the shitty food Deadlock provided, and after that, his issues with Gabe's standard fare as well.

Too good for it.

Always just a little too good.

Too good for McCree too.

Watching McCree from under his lashes, tongue wedged in the corner of his mouth. Watching and watching. Breathing heavy.

'Let me see his face, Jesse, show him to me.'

And McCree had. McCree would have done anything for Genji.

"We're gonna have to negotiate, probably," McCree says. "People round these parts I'm sure ain't to keen on the whole lendin' deal. But if they're good horses..."

"How about I let you do all the talking?" Hanzo says. He's smiling, touching the back of McCree's hand with his pinkie.

"Cuz I ain't fucked that up in the least today."

"You got us the information we needed. You have done even better than I could have hoped," Hanzo says, fervent. He means it. McCree can feel how much he means it. "And that man...if he troubles us. If we see him before we catch up to Reyes, we will kill him."

Hanzo looks over at McCree. Eyes hard. A look he knows from Genji. The look they had shared before he had driven that glass into the man's face.

"If he hinders me finding my brother, I will kill him, Jesse McCree."

**

They set up camp at dusk.

McCree is confident enough in his night riding skills, but he isn't sure about Hanzo. They don't need one of the horses breaking an ankle out here, miles out of town already.

The negotiations for the horses had gone smoothly enough.

Hanzo had parted with a few more crisp notes and they had pretty much been on their way. McCree had circled them around the water stop town.

Hanzo had followed him without question.

And now in the gathering gloom, Hanzo is lighting the lantern. The strike of the matches is loud in the night, echoing off the stone ground, the ever sloping hills.

The light plays off of Hanzo's skin, contrasting against the sinking sun.

Absolutely gorgeous.

But McCree won't say so.

It sounds sappy enough in his head. So he just waters the horses and keeps quiet.

"You are staring at me," Hanzo says. He isn't looking at McCree, busy setting up the tent poles.

Strangely efficient. It had taken Genji months to master the tent.

"Not starin'," McCree says, averting his gaze just in time to see Hanzo turn.

"I do not mind."

McCree rolls his eyes, meets Hanzo's gaze. "You're a sappy old man."

"Because you are so much younger than me. So much less romantic. You once bought Genji flowers..."

"Didn't buy shit. They was wildflowers and I thought he'd like 'em and instead he gave 'em to a cat so..."

"It hurt your feelings? Genji passing your gift off on a whore?"

"Don't call 'em that. Half these ladies only doin' it cuz men won't let them do the real work."

Hanzo shakes his head. The shadows play off the angles of his face. Wells of darkness beneath his eyes. The sharp jut of his cheekbones is a cliff. The line of his nose, narrow as one of his foreign arrows.

Tricks of the light.

"Noble thief," he says, chiding. "Honorable scoundrel."

"I take it back," McCree says, striding to stand opposite Hanzo. "You are an asshole."

Behind him, the horses make a noise. Whinnying little grunts. Somewhere out in the night, crickets are starting to tune their chirps.

Hanzo, sitting on the ground, sunburned and sweaty, is the most beautiful thing McCree has ever seen.

So hauntingly out of place. Like a painting. Like a poem.

The lantern flickers slightly. The shadows on Hanzo's face writhe and twist. His facial hair is as dark as the sky. His eyes bottomless, hungry things.

McCree drops their bed rolls down, still bundled up. Collapses himself next to Hanzo. Head braced on the roll, chin toward the sky. Hat crumpled beneath him.

"Remember what Genji told you about the stars?" McCree asks. "They are so bright here, I can't wait for you to see them."

Hanzo is staring at him. Hands on his knees. "I remember."

McCree bumps his hand against Hanzo's knee. "Well, look up, darlin' and tell me if you still think he's such a liar."

Hanzo looks up.

Hanzo breathes.

Tips back slowly to mirror McCree's position. Neck braced on his bed roll, eyes to the sky. His hand brushes McCree's. Skin to wood. Not interlocking.

Just lying together.

Fate.

Destiny.

Hanzo licks his lips. The stars reflect against his skin, cold silver light. More appropriate than the flames.

McCree cannot look away. Doesn't want to.

He's seen the stars a million times. The myriad colors of the night's sky. Blacks and purples and blues. The occasional tinged band of light periwinkles and greys.

He's never seen someone like Hanzo. So taken by the beauty.

Even Genji had not seemed this affected.

"Different?" McCree asks.

"Amazing."

Hanzo breathes, steady. Out and in.

The horses nicker in the night. The crickets chirp.

A footfall.

Another.

McCree is moving before he's even totally aware of what he's heard.

Sudden jarring silence from the crickets to the east.

A step.

A chuckle.

McCree doesn't get further than his knees. There's a gun barrel at his temple, tight against his skin. Cold, deadly metal. Hanzo is still on the ground, staring.

His bow lies near the tent.

Too far to fetch.

McCree takes all of it in. Every detail. Another chuckle from the person holding the gun, deep, reverberating echoes. McCree turns his head just enough to see the man's knees.

Black wool pants. Not much of a tell.

The gun presses harder and McCree turns back toward the lantern, to his original position.

"Well, well, well," a voice says. Filtered somehow. A mask perhaps. Strangely echoed. "And here I thought I would never see a face like this again."

McCree's shoulders stiffen. His stomach turns. He wants to turn his head and can't. That old irrational nervousness. It isn't the gun at his temple that scares him, not even close.

"What did I tell you last time I saw you, Jesse McCree? That I'd kill you, soon as look at you?"

The voice chuckles. Such a mirthless, grating sound.

"Well, kiddo. I'm looking. Bang, bang. Right, cabrón?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg you guys are all seriously amazing. The comments got me blushing here!! So here you go, update chapter in less than 24 hours. Mostly talk but we made it through right?
> 
> Mistakes, concerns, comments, etc I'll be right here. Freaking out over how awesome and sweet each and every one of you is


	7. Chapter 7

Bang.

Bang.

McCree can't follow the flurry of motion to his left.

One minute he is kneeling in the dirt with a shotgun kissing his temple.

Bang.

One minute he is laying face down on the ground. Ears ringing.  
Dazed.

His first instinct is to check his arm. Pulls his left one against his chest, clutching it to him. Still there. Still together. Even though it's mechanical, McCree could not go through losing it again.

He rolls his head.

Somewhere behind him people are grunting. Sounds of a struggle.

The lantern has gone out.

Everything is shrouded in darkness. Watery silver shadows cast by the moon.

Hanzo is wrestling with the assailant. The lantern, shattered, rolls at their feet.

The movement before the gun had gone off: Hanzo, kicking the lantern at the gunman. The ground next to McCree's head has been chewed by buckshot.

McCree doesn't take the time to count his blessings.

The shotgun is lying a little further away from the tussling men. McCree stands, sways. His consciousness dips, black spots on the edges of his vision. Wetness on his cheeks, his shoulder. Blood black in the moonlight. Maybe not so lucky as all that.

He grabs for the shotgun, staggering.

Hanzo is on top, lips pulled back in a snarl. Animalistic in his fury. His shirt has been torn, hangs from his shoulder. His tattoo seems to glow. His hands are pressing a second shotgun lengthwise against the attacker's throat. Knee jammed into the man's gut.

In slow motion the scene seems to flip. The man on the ground raises his leg, twists. An inhuman angle. McCree has seen it before.

It's now Hanzo underneath, Hanzo with a solid foot planted on his chest. That second shotgun leveled at his forehead.

"Stop it," McCree says. Holding the shotgun he's picked up steady. Stock tucked under his armpit. Finger on the trigger. "It's enough, Gabe."

The man looks at him. Over the shoulder.

He's wearing a mask, McCree had been right about that much. Silver and luminous in the moonlight.

"Gonna shoot me, kid."

McCree steels himself. Blinks. There's blood in his eyes. Stinging.

"Get off him, Reyes."

The mask is expressionless. The endless pits of the eye holes seem to suck McCree in. On the ground Hanzo is glaring, hand locked on Reyes' ankle. The tendons in his wrist straining. McCree can see it, the pressure Reyes' foot is exerting on Hanzo's ribs.

"I said offa him!"

Slowly, sinuously, heel dragging across the exposed skin of Hanzo's chest, Reyes does. Hanzo is up, immediately. But the shotgun is still at his head; and Reyes is holding it, cocked back just enough, to keep Hanzo from grabbing it.

Hanzo's skin is already bruising. Red, swirling lines from where Reyes' boot had tracked.

There is blood on Hanzo's lip. Trickling into his beard.

"So what now," the voice from the mask asks. "Real little Mexican standoff we got here, Jesse."

McCree can feel himself swaying. An unsteadiness in his his knees. He adjusts his grip on the gun, shakes his head. Grounding himself.

"Take the mask off."

"No."

McCree is panting, more out of breath than he should be. Hanzo is staring at him.

"Gabe," McCree says, lowering the shotgun, just slightly. The barrel tipping toward the ground. His arm feels like lead. Finger cold on the trigger. He swallows. "Please."

"You finally come to try and kill me, kid, and all you can say is 'please'?"

"Kill you?" McCree asks. He knows how the confusion must look, shattered across his face like that. A similar look from Hanzo, eyebrows raised, mouth slightly open.

Confusion.

"I ain't..." McCree swallows again. Panting. There's pain in his head now, across his scalp. Of all the things to notice, he sees his hat, lying on the ground like a wounded thing. "I'm not here to kill ya."

God, he wishes he could see Gabe's face. The smooth surface of the mask gives nothing away. Still and silver. The surface of a lake.

The shotgun Reyes is holding to Hanzo's head twitches, just the slightest.

The black spots on the edges of McCree's vision are vibrating, dancing. Infinite, expanding voids. His finger is shaking on the trigger. Numb, tingling sensations in his neck.

McCree feels his knees give. The sensation of falling.

But it's far away.

Unimportant.

Hanzo is yelling his name as the darkness envelops his sight completely.

Blessed unconsciousness.

Beautiful oblivion.

 

 

McCree opens his eyes.

His throat is parched. Head an aching mess.

He's not dead.

A good thing, probably.

He makes a sounds, fighting to sit up, and Hanzo is there. Hanzo's hand on his shoulder, pushing him back down. No one has cleaned up Hanzo's lip.

McCree moves his prosthetic hand. Listens to the click and whirrs of his joints.

Here and now.

Hanzo keeps his hand on McCree's chest. Reassuring pressure. Warm gentle weight.

"You should not move too much," Hanzo is says. "You have lost a lot of blood."

"What happened?" McCree's voice comes out as an extended scratch. His lips against his dry tongue taste like copper.

Lost a lot of blood.

Hanzo turns, rummages through something out of McCree's view. When McCree turns his head, the pain screams across his scalp again. With a groan he rolls his head back to a neutral position. Squeezing his eyes closed.

Hanzo returns.

He's holding a dented canteen. Gently, Hanzo slips his hand beneath McCree's head, tilts the canteen against McCree's lips. Gratefully, McCree drinks. Cool sweet water.

Has anything ever tasted so good?

"What happened?" McCree tries again.

"You got winged, by the shot. I did not think he would pull the trigger."

"You don't know Gabe."

"Obviously not. I can remove the pellets in the morning. I dare not try it in the dark."

"Where are we?"

Hanzo looks around, shrugs. "He told me to follow. You were bleeding so much. Passed out. I followed."

"The horses? Our stuff?"

Hanzo shrugs again. The lines around his eyes are tight. Hand by McCree's arm curled into a fist. "He made me leave my bow. But he helped me drag you along. We are in a house. It has been hours. I do not know anything else."

A house.

"Could you find your way back to camp?"

"Yes. It was not a very long walk."

McCree sighs. "Get outta here then, you don't need to be dragged into this."

"I would not leave you unconscious," Hanzo says. His expression is unreadable.

"It don't matter. I don't matter. I dunno what's changed with Gabe, what's made him this way, but if he's planning on killin'..."

"I thought he was your friend."

"Mentor," McCree corrects. Father, McCree thinks. "Long time ago. Like me an' Genji. What was, what is, it's all fucked up."

Hanzo nods, fingers digging into the blanket McCree is laying on. He lifts the corner, splashes it with water from the canteen. Begins to wipe down McCree's face. Soft touches across his lips, tracing his hairline. Under his bangs.

McCree hisses, eyes sliding shut, and Hanzo mutters something under his breath. Soothing, apologetic.

His fingers touch McCree's lips, thumb brushing into McCree's beard, scratching lightly.

Soothing.

Apologetic.

McCree's breath stops in his throat, constricting tightly in his chest. The tip of Hanzo's finger traces the seam of his lips. Catching lightly on the skin there. Gentle pressure.

"I am sorry you got hurt."

"Ain't nothing really," McCree says. Hanzo's palm presses against his facial hair, rubs against the grain of his beard. "Hell, I've had worse." McCree smiles, Hanzo's fingers move with the motion.

"Is it how you felt with Genji?" Hanzo asks. "Helpless."

McCree nods. Lifts his hand from the sheets to encircle Hanzo's wrist. Smoothing along Hanzo's dragon. The storm clouds.

The tatters of Hanzo's shirt sleeve tickle McCree's knuckles. Fluttering pathetic things. The collar has been ripped open, buttons gone, torn apart.

Hanzo's nipple is exposed. Small and pink and round in the expanse of his pec. Just the left one. Peaked in the air.

McCree tries to sit up, Hanzo pushes him back down. Whatever it is McCree is lying on creaks dangerously with the abuse.

"I'm sorry," Hanzo says again.

"God damn it. Just come down here so I can kiss you, will ya?"

Hanzo smiles. Shakes his head. Insufferable. "You may kiss me when we're out of this mess," Hanzo says.

The level head.

The worldly-wise.

Around them, the house groans and settles.

The pain across McCree's head is a muted thing, throbbing in time with his pulse but ignorable. Winged him, Hanzo had said. No real damage.

Hanzo's lip looks pretty bad still. The blood has dried, thick and clotting at the corner.

"That hurt, darlin'?"

"Not so bad." Hanzo smiles, arms crossed on the surface McCree is lying on. "I have had worse. Genji once broke my nose. I do not think he meant to. We were playing ninjas. A real ninja would have been able to dodge Genji's punch. That was his defense, at least. Even many, many years later."

McCree grins. "How old were you?"

"Seven? Eight? Young. Father says it is the only time I have ever cried. And it was all because I was so mad at Genji."

"Is it?"

"Is it what?"

"The only time you've ever cried?"

Hanzo looks away. The thinking line is back between his brows, worrisome little thing. "I am human, McCree."

McCree feels himself flush. "I know," he says. "Was only kidding."

"Genji--"

"Genji?" A voice interrupts. Reyes' voice. His new, cold drawl.

Hanzo looks up, over McCree's head. McCree doesn't even bother to turn. He's gone through enough self-inflicted pain for one evening.

"You say Genji?"

"Yeah," McCree grumbles, "maybe you'da caught that part sooner if you hadn't been so busy shootin' me in the fuckin' head."

McCree should probably watch his tone. It's been a long time. The little standoff at camp had been enough to show him that. But he's always been mouthy where Gabe's authority is concerned. No amount of time could change that.

Hanzo is scowling. One of his hands is braced on McCree's hip. Protective little gestures.

"You can tell your attack dog to heel, McCree. I'm here to talk."

McCree can feel his headache, ready to roll back in. But he nods when Hanzo looks at him. Sits up slowly.

He's been laid out on some boxes, packing crates with a sheet thrown over them. They're in what looks like a cellar. No windows. One lantern. A set of stairs set into one wall, a heavy looking door set in the other. A chair in the center of the room, which Gabe circles once before sitting in.

Hanzo has a hand braced on his shoulder, helping him keep steady. He's glaring daggers at Reyes. Murder in the set of his lips.

"You gonna take off the mask so we can talk proper-like?"

"No."

McCree feels an irrational surge of anger at that. This was a man who he had looked up to, admired. Someone he'd learned from. Someone who had cared about him too, once. Who'd fed and sheltered his ass while McCree had been near comatose with the loss of his arm.

That man, here and now, is apparently dead.

Reyes chuckles.

"Christ, you always were such a sulky bitch," Reyes says. His hands are lifting. Touching around the edges of his mask. Pushing it up and off.

His chin, his cheeks, his eyes.

"Holy shit," McCree says.

Reyes grins. It's a feral thing. All teeth and sharp edges. "Not what you were expecting?"

He hasn't aged a fucking day.

Not a single one. In fifteen years.

The face, smiling back at McCree right now from across the room is the same one who'd cursed him out of the house fifteen years ago.

Same scars.

Same eyes.

Same beard.

Reyes pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. Strikes a match. The flames illuminate his skin. The warm brown tones of his cheeks. Alive and bright.

"How is this possible?" McCree hears himself asking.

Reyes taps the ashes onto the floor. Tips his chair back, balancing on the back two legs, heels dug in. He palms the back of his head. Takes a long drag on his cigarette.

"Indian magicks."

"Fuck off, Gabe."

Reyes shrugs. The smoke rings around his head like a crown. Nowhere to go. Hanging like a ghost.

"It is what it is, kid."

"Stop calling me that." It's too much like old times. Gabe with that face, that same fucking face, calling McCree kid.

"Of course," Reyes corrects, sarcastic. "How in the world could I forget? You got a beard and everything to remind me."

Next to McCree's thigh, Hanzo's hand tightens into a fist. The only movement in the room, except for the smoke, curling slowly from the end of Gabe's cigarette.

"So what's this?" Reyes asks, tipping his head toward Hanzo. "Replacement?"

"We're lookin' for Genji."

"Funny that."

McCree sighs. Looks away. Reyes is chuckling. Even without the mask, it is a husky, cold sound.

Different then his old chuckle. Humorless and dry.

"Genji is my brother." Hanzo says. His voice is clipped.

Reyes looks at him. A slow, reptilian thing. This is not the man McCree once knew. This is some creature, some fake, wearing Gabriel Reyes' skin.

"I don't know where Genji is," Reyes says. "Haven't even thought about that prick in years."

"We're lookin' fer Angela. She's the one you got to fix him up, right?"

"'Fix him up' is an interesting choice of words, Jesse." Reyes licks his lips. He lowers the chair back down to four legs. He snuffs the end of his cigarette out with his heel. "Interesting. Interesting."

"Gabe..."

"Did you tell him?" Reyes asks. Leaning in. Conspiratorial. "About what happened?"

"Most of it."

"Most of it? Left out the good parts I'm sure." Reyes swallows. Skims his gaze over Hanzo again. "Did he tell you it was his fault? It's all he would talk about. Feverish. Dying. And all he would say was it was his fault. Alllllll his fault."

Reyes drags the word out in a whisper, voice shaking. The cold echo of it. All his fault.

"Did he tell you how Genji looked?" Reyes continues. "Terrified of dying. Abandoned. With his guts suspended between his fingers. Reeking of death and shit." He's talking to Hanzo but he's looking at McCree. Accusing McCree.

"Amazing he lasted three days like that. Wanting to die. Afraid to die."

"Genji was not a coward." Hanzo says. The fingers of his left hand are digging into McCree's hip. Muscles of his bicep flexing against McCree's back.

"No," Reyes concedes, rolling his shoulders. "He was a fucking kid. Better off dead than where Jesse here left him."

"You don't--"

"Three days and the rot's set in, you see? Three days of exposure and things ain't working so right anymore," Reyes cuts in, viciously. "Isn't that right, Jesse? You knew it too. The fever. The sweet smell of it. For poor Genji though it was more than just an arm. A limb."

Reyes shakes his head. "Poor Genji."

McCree has heard this part before. Delivered softer. Reyes' hand on his shoulder, comforting. Delivering the bad news.

Genji's real bad off.

Genji is asking for you.

"Remember, how when Tor got here, we had saw some more of that rotting piece of you off?" Reyes asks. He's smiling as he asks it. Like McCree could forget. "Do you remember how you sobbed?"

McCree touches his arm, presses his fingers against the seam of it. Flesh, soldered to wood. Reyes had held him down while they did it. Peacekeeper's grip between his teeth to keep him from biting through his tongue. The way he'd begged them to stop.

Reyes blinks. Waiting for a response.

"I remember," McCree says.

"It was hell, wasn't it? Painful." Reyes voice drops to a whisper. "Agonizing." He tips his head, nods at Hanzo. "And that's what we had to do to your brother. Cut the bad bits out, burn the infection away." He lights another cigarette, the tip flares brightly as he takes a drag.

"Not much left. After three days. Almost not enough to call a person anymore. And there is Genji, poor Genji."

"I wouldn't see him," McCree says. Nails biting into the flesh above his elbow. "He asked for me, you told me he asked for me, and I wouldn't."

He glances behind him, takes in Hanzo's expression. That frozen frown.

"But he lived?" Hanzo asks.

Reyes raises an eyebrow. "If you can call it that. We spent about three months trying to figure out what to do with him. If we should just," Reyes makes a face, cigarette dangling from his lips, thumb swiping across his throat, "put him out of his misery. But Angela stood by the cocaine. Said it kept him in a fog. Said it wasn't cruel. She wanted to save him, you see? One less wasted life. And Torbjörn...well..."

Reyes makes a gesture with his hand. Sweeping.

"He made my arm," McCree says. "A genius with this sort of thing."

"Arm only took him two months. Genji was an altogether more delicate project."

"What did you do to my brother?"

"Saved him." Reyes shrugs. "Damned him. Torbjörn built the shell. Angela dumped all the working pieces in." The ashes flake off the end of the cigarette, scatter around Reyes' feet like snow. "Almost a year of cutting a stitching and burning later and you got yourself a working human body. With only a fraction of the working human parts."

"Not possible."

"With science, anything is possible."

"What's happened to you?" McCree asks.

The Gabe he had known had never been like this. Cold. Cruel.

Gabriel smiles. A flash of teeth against the pink of his lips. "You want to know the first thing Genji asked for, when he woke up in that shell for the first time?"

McCree shakes his head. Behind him Hanzo is still as a statue. As a corpse. Frozen, lifeless thing.

"He asked for you. 'Course you'd run off months ago, ungrateful little bastard that you are. Arm working out for you? Life all settled in your little bar down south?"

"You been watchin' me?"

"Just keeping tabs. Case you ever decided to settle that last little conversation we had."

"Ain't nothing to settle. Gabriel Reyes is dead."

Reyes makes another vague motion. Hand twisting in the air. Palm up, palm down. "If it helps you sleep at night, I guess you can think that. Fifteen years though and you ain't had too much trouble."

"Where did Genji go?" McCree asks.

Reyes sighs. Scratches the back of his neck. "Was headed north, last I saw. That was," Reyes looks up, studies the ceiling, "spring of '87. I don't know where he was going, or where he went. Never been much of a penpal that kid."

"I went south though."

Reyes rolls his head, expression flat. "Guess he wasn't really looking for you then, huh?"

McCree looks down at his lap. The dried blood on his shirt. The mud on his slacks.

"Atonement isn't all it's cracked up to be, Jesse," Reyes says. "Remember that."

And for a moment, just a moment, he sounds like his old self again.

McCree looks up and Reyes is standing. Hands on the back of the chair he'd been sitting in. The mask is back on. Skull-like. Expressionless.

"You can stay the night here. There's beds upstairs, a stove. You won't see me again, kid. Don't come looking." He walks toward the door. Broad-shouldered. Straight-backed. As he always has been. The sight is like a knife, digging between McCree's ribs.

Reyes pauses when he gets there. Hand on the knob. Looking over his shoulder. At Hanzo. At McCree. There is no way to tell.

"They say some religious nuts have started a colony out in California." He drawls. "Bunch of Japs in robes preaching peace. Inner-calm. Maybe you should look into that, Jesse. This self-loathing you carry could be the death of you. Was almost the death of Genji, you know."

Then he opens the door and is gone. Melted into the darkness.

A ghost.

A shadow from McCree's past. Trussed up and perverted out of shape.

Hanzo is silent behind him.

McCree closes his eyes.

"So Reyes was a dead-end, I guess." McCree says. It's an apology, though he knows it doesn't sound like one. He turns his head, just a little.

Hanzo's face is blank. A neutral frown, eyes focused far away. Thinking. Lost in it.

McCree goes to stand, pushes his bulk off the crates he'd been laid across. The movement makes his head spin. He touches the burning place, fingers in his hair.

Wet with fresh blood.

Lightning strikes of pain when he presses down too hard.

Hanzo is staring at him now. Watching. Silent.

"I never said I was a good person," McCree says. Angry. Useless, poisonous anger. "You don't have to look at me like that."

Hanzo says nothing.

Like he's seeing McCree in a new light. Like he's finally realizing the depth and scope of McCree's past.

"I'm not the kid Genji wrote about it his letters. I'm not the noble scoundrel, okay? I get it." He balls his hands into fists. Pin-points of heat behind his eyes. Anger, regret.

The dregs of his past, laid bare between the two of them.

"It was stupid of you to believe him," McCree says. Low and sharp. Aiming to leave Hanzo as raw as he feels himself. Unfair. Cruel. Cowardly. "Stupid of you to fall in love with your brother's interpretation of me."

Hanzo closes his eyes. Breathes through his nose. Not speaking. It hurts more than any words of disappointment or anger could.

The lantern flickers, sputters.

Dies.

The two of them stand, alone in the dark. A million miles apart.

It's lonely.

It's painful.

"I'm sorry." McCree says.

There is no light, he could be speaking to no one. To anyone. To Genji.

"Hanzo, I'm sorry," he says. "I woulda helped you. Regardless. I never should have let you believe I wouldn't."

In the dark across the room, something rustles.

Footsteps.

Hanzo is touching his elbow. They're inches apart, but Hanzo is invisible in the darkness.

"Do you think I hate you, Jesse McCree?"

McCree closes his eyes. There's no difference between the darkness. Beside him, Hanzo is breathing the dark. McCree can hear his own heartbeat, the constant thrum of his pulse. Hanzo's hand on his arm is warm. The spot of roughness in the middle of his palm. Hanzo picking the shard of glass out with his fingertips.

"Yes."

"All this distance I have travelled, for your help. Do you really think I hate you?" Hanzo repeats.

"Don't you?" McCree says. His voice is rougher than he intends. Harsh.

"I did not offer you my body as compensation for your help alone," Hanzo says and his voice is soft and tender and gentle. Whispered between the two of them. Something to be shared only here, in the darkest places. "I am selfish too," he says. "I am a bad person. Maybe we both are. But I do not think you are bad and I do not think Genji was wrong."

Hanzo swallows. McCree can hear the click of his throat. The catch of his breath between his teeth. McCree opens his eyes.

There is nothing to see. Darkness. Impenetrable.

He can feel Hanzo moving, inches from him. The air of the cellar, stirring around them. Something rattles. Scrapes.

The smell of sulfur.

And then light, blinding. Closer than McCree expects. A match, held between Hanzo's fingers. A tiny source of light.

"I do not hate you, Jesse. I could not, even if I wanted to."

"Why?" McCree asks. "Why me?"

Hanzo shrugs. The match shakes between his fingers. The light plays off his cheekbones. It's burning down too quickly.

"A feeling, I suppose. Perhaps because you hate yourself...because I see myself in that."

The light goes out.

Hanzo lights another.

McCree swallows.

Truly speechless for once.

"We should go," he says. "Camp probably hasn't been raided yet. Only been a few hours you said."

Hanzo nods. "You should rest. I will fetch our supplies."

"I'll be fine," McCree says.

"You are pale," Hanzo says. "And you are lying." The match goes out. Hanzo strikes a third. "You will rest. And I will fetch. And then you may kiss me, Jesse McCree. I did promise you, after all."

McCree smiles. He can't help it. Something about Hanzo. The stoic optimism. Some sort of glaring contradiction. A man fighting against his own nature.

He lets Hanzo guide him to the door Reyes had left through.

Atonement.

Forgiveness.

Redemption.

Duty.

Hanzo loops his arm around McCree's waist. Supports him as they climb the creaking stairs into the house proper.

The gesture feels like forgiveness.


	8. Chapter 8

"Ow, God damnit, Hanzo. Ya can't just--Christ sake!" McCree's biceps flex against Hanzo's thighs, hands clutching at Hanzo's knees.

Hanzo's hand slips around his chin, strokes his cheek. Fingers rough in the scrub of his beard, forcing his head to tilt to the side. Hanzo's legs tighten on McCree's shoulders, inefficient at keeping McCree from squirming, but better than nothing.

"You must remain still," Hanzo chides. Not even a hint of humor in his voice. "I do not wish to hurt you further."

The blunt edge of the arrowhead parts through McCree's hair. Hanzo's fingers on his free hand following in its wake. The light from the lantern is a poor substitute for sun, Hanzo moves McCree's head as he needs, bending and twisting his wrist to keep the best angles.

"Only a few more to go, Jesse," Hanzo says. "You are doing so wonderfully for me."

The floor around McCree's knees is scattered with buckshot fragments and blood. The bed Hanzo is sitting on creaks when McCree braces himself against it. When the tip of Hanzo's broken arrow presses against the broken skin of his scalp.

Dirty work.

Painful clean up.

But it has to be done. And now, with their stuff safely retrieved and all signs of Reyes vanished, is the best time to do it.

Hanzo had seemed confident in his ability anyhow.

The arrow tip digs in.

McCree groans, squeezes his flesh fingers tight. Hanzo's legs draped across his shoulders and down his chest squeeze back in response.

An odd position.

A strangely intimate setup.

Hanzo's ankle pressed tight against McCree's crotch. McCree's head essentially resting in Hanzo's lap. Unconscious positioning, McCree is sure. Hanzo has been nothing but business since they got upstairs.

The arrow scrapes against him again. In and down and out. McCree can feel the scabbing tear.

Another piece of metal falls to the floor. Too small to be anything but soundless. Hanzo's fingers soothe over the place, followed by a rough pass of gauze. But Hanzo's touch is gentle.

Gentle.

Always so gentle.

McCree swallows.

"I think that was the last of it," Hanzo says. McCree can feel him, still parting through his hair. Double checking. Triple checking. "Are you okay?"

McCree nods. Loosens his grip on Hanzo's knee, rubs his flesh hand down the curve of Hanzo's shin. Hanzo shifts in his grip. McCree can't see Hanzo's expression, but he can imagine it. The slight frown, the bemused up-tilt to Hanzo's brows.

"Be better if you'd gimme them kisses you promised," McCree says, turning his head just the slightest. He had been right about the frown, though the corners of Hanzo's mouth curl into a grin at the words. McCree watches Hanzo try to school his expression, the little twitches of his lips as he tries to frown again.

Trying and failing in not looking charmed.

"Like that line, darlin'?" McCree says with a wink. "You can admit you wanna kiss me all better."

Hanzo rolls his eyes. "Your ego does not need such indulgences."

"Little praise goes a long way." McCree half-turns, arms slipping out of the cradle of Hanzo's legs. His head hurts, but he wasn't lying when he had said he'd had worse. This pain can be easily ignored. Especially if it means riling Hanzo up again.

"Don't you like being told how good you are, Hanzo? How amazing?What a great dick you have. How perfect it looks when you come. God, Hanzo, your face when you came--"

"You are insatiable."

"Part of the charm."

Hanzo rolls his eyes again. His knee, pressed under McCree's armpit now, is shaking just the slightest bit. "So horribly American."

"Yeah, yeah," McCree says, grinning, "and ya love it."

It skims a little closer to the truth than McCree intends. His harsh words in the basement. Hanzo's vague confirmation.

Hanzo doesn't seem to notice though, ignores any sort of lingering bite the words could have. He cups McCree's chin instead, leaning down. McCree meets him halfway. Mouth open. Hands already pawing at the vee of Hanzo's crotch. Palming against the slight resistance of Hanzo's dick.

Not really hard yet.

Losing his touch.

"I shouldn't let you," Hanzo says against McCree's lips.

"Let me what?"

Hanzo rolls his shoulders, a shrug. His eyes close. Open. Forehead leaning against McCree's. Hips rutting against McCree's hands, unconscious little pulses, seeking friction.

"Don't wanna feel like I'm forcin' ya here, Hanzo. Talk to me. Tell me."

"I have," Hanzo shakes his head, cutting himself off. "I am the heir to the Shimada clan. I am independent. Responsible."

"You're worried about that? Now?"

Hanzo makes a helpless noise and McCree moves his hands. Encircles Hanzo's waist instead. Uses that grip to shuffle the two of them up onto the bed. Laying face to face.

The lust is still singing in his blood, but dampened by Hanzo's obvious distress. Ignorable.

Hanzo is glaring at him. Corners of his eyes wrinkling with the expression. His cock is still tenting the front of his slacks. Cheeks red.

"My father is dying, McCree. That is why I am here. That is why I must find Genji. Things are changing back home, drastic things. Painful. The emperor loses strength daily, sick they say. Frail. And our father...lucky if he lasts the year. Almost impossible he will live to make it two."

"I'm sorry," McCree says. Because he doesn't know what else to say. "I shouldn'ta called him an asshole."

Hanzo shakes his head, leaning into McCree's space. Eyes closed. Bracing himself on McCree's shoulder. "These dying old men, these dying old traditions. An heir. Duty. I have failed him so many times, McCree.

"My father has bid me to bring Genji home. His last request. Bring the family name honor, together, in business. Bring Genji home not to say goodbye, but to do our duty as sons. Bring Genji home." Hanzo swallows. McCree can feel the flutter of his lashes against his skin.

"And I do not want to."

Hanzo breathes, the puff of air tickles McCree's collarbone. Hanzo's hands in his chest hair. Digging in. Anchored.

"Three days, I have been with you. Wasting my time. Lingering. Dallying. Stupid you said and you were not wrong--"

"I didn't mean it like that, Hanzo."

"I know you did not." Hanzo tilts his chin. His gaze is unwavering, warm and gentle. In opposition to his tone. "I know what you meant. But you were still not wrong. My father's last request, Jesse McCree, and I would risk it all to stay with you, here."

McCree doesn't know how to respond to that. So open and raw. Hanzo breaking off these pieces of himself. The past he had no wish to discuss.

"Fell in deep, huh, sugar?" McCree asks, grinning, stupid with it.

Hanzo's eyes go wide. Obviously not the response he was expecting to his confession, obviously not the reaction. He recovers quickly though. Brows furrowing, smoothing out. Playing up his frown.

"You are no help."

"I dunno what you expect me to say. Ain't gonna encourage you to leave, if that's what you're lookin' for. Ain't gonna tell you to fuck off your father's dyin' wish either but..."

He looks down, to where Hanzo's hands are still tangled in his chest hair.

"Well..." McCree drawls, looking back up at Hanzo's fingers tightening on Hanzo's hip. He lifts his prosthetic hand to touch Hanzo's face, fingertips tracing Hanzo's chin. The scratchy sound of facial hair on lacquered wood. The wound on Hanzo's lip has mostly healed, only a trace of red left at the corner of his mouth.

"You are a terrible influence."

"Even Genji must have told you that much."

Hanzo sighs. Smiling. He moves his hand to touch McCree's collar, fingers running down his sternum. Circling a nipple. Exploratory touches. More aimless than sultry.

"It ain't like there's a huge rush," McCree says, dipping his head. The brush of the bed spread against his scalp causes a shiver of pain to run through him. Hanzo's nail, clipping lightly against his nipple, tugging gently on his hair, doesn't help. Added stimulation.

"I mean, he's dyin', he's dyin', right? Ain't gonna change that even if you start lookin' again from scratch. Even if you miraculously found him tonight."

"Is that anyway to talk about my family?"

"Ain't trynna offend, Hanzo."

"No," Hanzo says, still smiling slightly. "I believe you were not. You are just trying to fuck me."

McCree is genuinely a little offended at the implication. But Hanzo has broken out into a wider grin; finger tracking more purposefully against him. Teasing.

"You did promise me kisses," McCree says. "I'm just trynna keep you a man of your word." Hanzo's palm cups his pec, nipple pinched between his fingers, a grinding little rhythm.

McCree chuckles, presses his lips to Hanzo's. Arching his back to make the contact more solid. Hanzo's thumb smoothes through his chest hair, a secondary distraction. He fucks his tongue into Hanzo's mouth, his own wooden thumb dragging at Hanzo's lip. Sloppy. Spit all down Hanzo's chin.

"Afraid I ain't as sensitive as you," McCree says when Hanzo makes a frustrated noise against him mouth, fingers tugging on McCree's peaked flesh. The nipple is pink and swollen, but Hanzo's ministrations have done little else.

"I'm sorry that I am so bad at this."

"Hey now, no! Ya ain't bad. But these," McCree tweaks Hanzo's nipple and Hanzo flinches into him, tiny, stifled moan slipping out at the unexpected contact, "on me, they just ain't a spot."

"Show me one of your spots then," Hanzo says, grabbing McCree's wrist to keep him from playing further with Hanzo's nipples. "I want this to be good for you too."

"What was it you said, darlin'? 'If it's with you it is good'. Sappy line but it goes for me too, Hanzo," McCree says, voice dropping low, hands pulling Hanzo against him. Chests bumping together, legs tangled. "You wanna achieve some sort of mutual end here though, think I might know a way."

Hanzo sits up, knees on either side of McCree's hips. Hands braced on McCree's hairy chest. The spread of his palms is dry and warm. McCree wonders if Hanzo can feel his heartbeat, staccato and strong in the curl of his fingers.

He can see Hanzo's. The beat of his pulse in his throat as he swallows. Grinds himself down in McCree's lap. Bold gestures.

"Are you going to fuck me, Jesse?"

Christ, he wants to. He aches to, from the soles of his feet to his cock to his chest; tight, distinct longing. But he wants to do Hanzo right. Wants to take his time with it. Draw it out. Fuck Hanzo so deep, and so throughly that Hanzo won't be able to walk, let alone ride a horse the next day.

He doesn't want Hanzo's first to be a quickie on a mattress in some stranger's cabin. Doesn't want rushed and rough and disappointing.

He pets through Hanzo's hair, keeps his wood and metal hand on Hanzo's hip, pushing the material of Hanzo's pants down just the slightest.

"Had something a little different in mind," McCree says. "You liked the taste of my cock right?" He licks his lips at the shiver that runs through Hanzo at that, Hanzo's knees clamping down on McCree's thighs. Inadvertently pushing himself down against the press of McCree's erection.

"That yes or a no, darlin'?"

Hanzo glares at him from under his lashes. Takes a shuddering breath. He's blushing. The tips of his ears peeking under his hair are scarlet.

"Yes," he says. "I liked the taste of you."

McCree feels the smile unfurling on his face. A slow crawl from one side to the other. Toothy. A little praise.

"Then why don't we try that again," he asks, smug. He can't keep the tone out of his voice. "Only this time, together."

Hanzo twitches, shoulders curling inward. He looks away. "I do not know how." He licks his lips. That thinking frown.

"Don't you trust me, Hanzo?"

Hanzo looks at him. Helpless. Echoes of the things he's said and done in the last three days--all the things he's opened himself up to--are in that look. An eighteen year wait. An ache for the touch of a total stranger, a fiction.

It's too cruel to make him say it.

"Let's get these off, huh?" McCree says, pushing Hanzo's thigh with his wooden hand. Hanzo stands off of him. Pushes the material off of his hips and away.

McCree shimmies out of his own trousers. Kicks them to the end of the bed. Hanzo is staring at him. Hanzo's cock bobs slightly in the air, head still covered with a bit of foreskin, not completely exposed. McCree motions him back over.

"Turn around," he says, and Hanzo seems to get it. Climbs onto McCree backwards. Face toward McCree's cock.

"Like this?" He asks, looking over his shoulder. His hair is curling on his cheek, grey and distracting against his skin. Beautiful.

McCree swipes the hair back into place. Grins down at him.

"Almost perfect."

He tugs on Hanzo's legs, gets him to scoot back just a little further. Less of a stretch on McCree's neck, McCree's wound. He runs the flat of his wooden palm against Hanzo's cock just to feel Hanzo squirm against him.

Shudders at the answering squeeze Hanzo gives him. A small display of retribution.

"Now you just suck, darlin', like before. Just like before."

Hanzo's lips on his cock will forever be something McCree remembers, he is sure of it. The first hesitant press of them to the root of his shaft, just the slightest bit damp. The way Hanzo drags them up, trailing little kisses, nuzzling against the flesh. The sound he makes as he takes head between them.

McCree moans, closes his eyes briefly at the sensation. When he opens them again, Hanzo's ass is pressing toward him impatiently. His cock, already leaking, hangs heavy between his thighs.

Aching.

McCree gets the message. Leans forward to lick roughly at the base of Hanzo's cock. Flesh fingers tugging at the head. He kneads Hanzo's ass cheek with his prosthetic, pinching the skin to feel Hanzo shake against him.

Hanzo's groans, muffled by McCree's dick. The vibrations adding another layer of pleasure.

McCree holds Hanzo's cock, tongues at Hanzo's foreskin, only slightly amazed when Hanzo swells further against his tongue. The first bitter surge of precome against his lips and chin. Hanzo's is keening when McCree applies just the lightest pressure with his teeth. McCree's wooden hand keeps rubbing Hanzo's ass, fingers sliding along the cleft, teasing the sensitive skin there.

Hanzo takes his mouth off McCree's cock to moan, panting against McCree's damp skin.

"Jesse," he is saying, "Jesse, Jesse, please."

McCree's cock tracks against his cheek, the foreign scratch of Hanzo's beard against him an experience McCree finds himself shifting his hips to repeat.

"Please what, Hanzo?"

"Your fingers. You can." Hanzo grunts, pushing his ass against McCree's hand. "I want them in."

"These ones?" McCree drums the wooden and metal ones against the heated flesh of Hanzo's thigh and Hanzo sobs, nods. Chin tucked against McCree's hip, hands tugging at McCree's cock.

Wrung out.

Wrecked.

The sensitive, over-stimulated virgin.

It's wonderful.

"All you gotta do is ask, darlin'."

McCree slides the prosthetic against Hanzo's slit, lubing his fingers with the precum there. Not perfect, by any means, but it'll do. Hanzo shivers against him as McCree rubs his index finger against Hanzo's hole.

Hanzo moans again, his voice low and breaking, as McCree breaches him.

McCree watches, more fascinated than he's comfortable admitting, with the way Hanzo's body accepts him. His prosthetic finger sinking into the knuckle. Hanzo's body pushing back, forcing McCree deeper. Just a little deeper.

McCree licks at Hanzo's balls, heavy and musky; times the motion with another finger pressing into Hanzo's willing body, McCree's human thumb twisting against Hanzo's glans. Sticky with another splash of Hanzo's slick. Dripping onto McCree's chest. 

Hanzo positively writhes on McCree's fingers, taking McCree easy.

"You done this to yourself?" McCree asks. He nips at the back of Hanzo's thigh, bites down hard enough to bruise when Hanzo nods. Hanzo's hands barely moving on McCree's cock. Lost in his own pleasure.

"Genji was descriptive," Hanzo gasps, his muscles clenching around McCree's prosthetics. "It--I've only--"

McCree doesn't care. He scissors his fingers, rough. The thought of Hanzo, thinking of McCree, instructed to do these things by Genji. It's that weird line again. A blur between incest and something else.

Ridiculously hot, regardless.

He scissors his fingers again, knuckles pressed up on the skin of Hanzo's butt, bruising. He laves his tongue into the gap.

Filthy.

McCree is beyond it. Too keyed up to worry about the sweat and musk flavor against his tongue. This intimate space.

Hanzo freezes. Muscles in his thighs seizing up around McCree's shoulders. Hands tightening to the point of painful on McCree's cock.

"You shouldn't," Hanzo groans, a token protest. He's melting over McCree, boneless, hips driving back and back. McCree licks against him, firm broad strokes with the flat of his tongue. Changes tactics to stab into the cleft between his fingers.

Trailing spit.

An absolute mess.

Hanzo is keening, mouth open, panting into McCree's belly hair.

McCree twists his prosthetic fingers, pressing down inside of Hanzo, rubbing against Hanzo's inner walls. He wishes he could feel the clench around him, the spread of his spit around his fingers, but the noises, the squelching, wet sounds will have to do.

He fondles Hanzo's balls with his flesh hand. Rolls them between his fingers. Hums his approval against Hanzo's asshole when Hanzo moves his own hands to mirror McCree's.

Tugging McCree's balls. Squeezing them lightly.

A finesse that quite frankly McCree is surprised Hanzo is even still capable of.

McCree goes to add a third finger and the stimulation apparently becomes too much.

Hanzo cries out as the tip presses into him. Blows his load all over McCree's chest.

Without even a hand on his cock.

It's pretty impressive.

Hanzo's muscles shake as he comes. Clenching and clenching around McCree's fingers. McCree imagines his cock, sheathed in that tightness, Hanzo's body milking him for all he's worth. He strokes Hanzo through the orgasm, keeps pressing his fingers against the inner walls until Hanzo's pleasured pants turn pitiful.

Over-sensitized.

A dead weight on McCree's chest.

Hanzo's legs are still twitching, coming down from it when McCree removes his fingers. Spit dribbling from the puffy red rim of Hanzo's hole.

A mess.

McCree is still hard. He shuffles Hanzo in his lap, just slightly, jostles him enough to get him moving again.

Hanzo's lips, sucking hard at the head of McCree's dick is all it takes. Hanzo's tongue curls around him, lazy, satiated. A noise of pleasure from the back of his throat and McCree is coming.

Almost embarrassingly fast. If he weren't so keyed up from letting Hanzo fuck his face, maybe he would feel more defensive about it.

"How is your head, Jesse?" Hanzo asks. Unmoving. His chin, sticky with the come he missed with his mouth, rubs against McCree's upper thigh.

There's probably no tub here.

They are well and truly stuck in their filth this time.

McCree palms his own scalp, hisses slightly at the contact. But there's no fresh blood, no unbearable pain.

"Think I'll live. Wanna come up here and cuddle properly?"

Hanzo chuckles. His stomach contracting against McCree's chest. An odd sensation. Not that McCree is complaining.

"We should clean up."

Always the wise one. McCree hates it.

"Live a little. Some mess never hurt anyone."

Hanzo glances over his shoulder at him. Come drying in his beard. Tracks of spit. McCree is sure he doesn't look much better. He rubs his flesh hand against his chin and winces.

Definitely not better.

"At least let me wipe us off," Hanzo says. "And then we shall see."

"No promises this time?"

Hanzo smiles. Sitting up. He only sways a little bit before getting his feet under him. Only a little unsteady in the aftermath of his orgasm. 

A little praise. McCree can feel himself returning the smile with a big, sappy grin of his own.

"I have seen what happens when I make promises to you, McCree. The messes you make of them. Some kisses; now look at us."

The damp cloth Hanzo brings over is cool, their drinking water, McCree is sure. He wipes off his own face, down across his chest. Watches Hanzo do the same.

He looks around for a place to put the rag, sighs and then drops it to the floor. McCree scoots over on the mattress, pats the open space next to him.

More room on this bed then there had been on the hotel one. Hanzo shakes his head, still smiling, indulgent little curl of his lips. He turns the lantern down. McCree watches him, painted gold by the flame, fading, fading, until the fire flickers and dies.

Hanzo slides in beside McCree, turning to let McCree spoon up behind him.

He squeezes McCree's wooden arm as it slides around his chest. Kisses McCree's wooden fingers, the metal bits of his joints.

"We'll start the search again tomorrow," McCree says into Hanzo's shoulders.

"There is a lot of north to the north," Hanzo whispers. "We have no other clues."

"We'll figure out something. We'll find him."

Hanzo sighs. McCree can only just make out his expression. The worried little frown in the dark. Hanzo's hair blocks his eyes, tangled across his forehead. McCree brushes it out of the way. Hanzo glances at him, chin tilting just slightly to look at him.

"Why are you like this," he asks. His voice is just a little bit desperate.

McCree thinks of the two of them, down in the dark.

"Why are you helping me? Indulging me?"

McCree shrugs. Soothes his fingers down Hanzo's throat. Feeling Hanzo the vibration of Hanzo's Adam's apple. If it were flesh would he be able to feel Hanzo's life, pulsing against him?

McCree licks his lips.

"Genji was my friend. Genji was my only friend. You don't leave friends like that. You don't run from 'em. You need to find Genji. I need ta apologize. Two birds; one stone."

"Atonement is not all it is cracked up to be," Hanzo mutters. He is squinting, looking off into the distance. Studying the far wall of the little house. "Do you believe that?"

"Gabe's atonement is different. Gabe has always been trying to make it up to the wrong people. Ain't no redemption for the dead; ain't no apologizin' to 'em." McCree closes his eyes. "Gabe had ghosts bigger than you or I...I dunno what happened, but it seems like maybe they got the better of him...finally."

"You do not know my ghosts, Jesse McCree."

"It's not for lack of askin', Hanzo Shimada. You damn stubborn."

"Do you really want to know?"

"I led your brother to gettin' near eviscerated and then ran off and never even bothered to check if he lived. Think it can be much worse than that, Hanzo?"

Hanzo closes his eyes. Outside the window, the dark has begun to purple. The approaching dawn. The harsh realities of day. They are directionless. Hanzo is right about that much. McCree listens to Hanzo breathing, resigns himself to that non-answer. His limbs are still post-sex sleepy, he closes his eyes.

"I tried to kill him myself."

McCree opens his eyes.

Hanzo's voice is deadpan. Whispered between them. He could be asking about the weather, commenting on a bounty price.

"Before he left. A few hours." Hanzo is still staring off into the dark.

"You told me you had a fight."

"We did have a fight. Father was letting him go on my adventure. Father was tired of his flippant disrespect and I had always wanted to come to America.

"It was Genji's opportunity to throw tradition in both of our faces. He said he was coming to America to study. So Father let him come and Genji got here and Genji started robbing banks. Our father was furious when he found out, but here Genji was, thousand and thousands of miles away."

Hanzo shrugs, his shoulders roll against McCree's.

"So what could he do?"

"But you tried to kill him?" McCree asks. His throat feels dry. Post-orgasmic sleepiness has morphed into a ball of dread, sludgy and viscous in the pit of his stomach.

"The night he left," Hanzo says. He blinks. Slowly. "I confronted him. He was taking away the one thing I had wanted for as long as I could remember. He knew, already, how many ways I had disappointed Father. My...deviant interests. He knew, but he got Father to agree to let him come.

"He had trapped me in Japan. That was what I thought. He was going, so I could not. If I had gone, he would have followed. As it were, he knew I would not.

"We fought in his room. I grabbed his wrist and he punched me. Like we were eight again. Right across the nose. He was laughing."

Hanzo's brow is furrowed. He is speaking slowly. Each word thought out. A careful recounting. It's never really occurred to McCree with how comfortable Hanzo seems speaking in English how difficult it must be. Hanzo's mastery, except for a word, lost in his vocabulary here or there, is flawless.

But here, McCree can feel his struggle.

"It made me so angry. Crying because of Genji again. I...I tried to choke him. His throat beneath my fingers, the...fluttering...I could feel him, trying to breathe. His nails cutting into my wrists. And then he just...was not there. Anymore.

"I got scared. I got off of him. He was breathing again. He looked at me like he hated me. Why wouldn't he? I tried to kill him over what?"

"But then he sent you letters?"

"Mocking me, I thought at first. Toting the adventure I could not have. But he wrote so sincerely about you. About the banks and violence. How much fun he was having, at times in mortal peril." Hanzo runs his fingers along McCree's arm. "He was sincere, earnest. He needed someone to talk to, I think. A sink hole for all the things he had been able to experience, out there, freed from the pressure of our father's thumb. A forgiveness."

Hanzo swallows. "Genji has been here, alone, for so many years. Stopped writing. He never even knew that I read his letters. I am here to bring him home because Father demands it and it is my duty.

"But I too have something to apologize for, McCree."

"That's a lot to take in, all at once." McCree says. He's made no move to pull away. Wouldn't even if he wanted to.

Wracked by their own similar guilts. The two of them. Unable to work past it. Complimentary in their flaws.

"We'll find him," McCree says, pressing a kiss to Hanzo's bare shoulders. "Together."

**

When McCree awakens it is fully day.

He stares at the sun, the way the dust motes spiral lazily through the air.

They have a lot to do.

Nowhere to start.

McCree sits up.

Hanzo is not in bed with him.

The panic doesn't surface as quickly this time. But it is there, humming under his skin as McCree pats the bedding next to him.

Cold.

Abandoned.

McCree's breathing catches in his throat.

Hanzo's bow is not where he had left it by the door the night before.

McCree kicks the sheet off. Pulls himself upright. There's a folded piece of paper on the table by the stove. McCree stares down at it.

Abandoned.

Abandoned.

The murky feeling in his gut curls tighter and tighter.

Dread and panic.

Abandoned.

He picks the paper up. Unfolds it. It shakes between his fingers. The first line has several blotches of ink.

McCree can imagine Hanzo lifting and lowering the pen. Trying to think how to start it. The proper way.

The handwriting is spindly and cramped, slightly slanted. Just a touch shaky. Hanzo probably doesn't write in English too often.

The note is addressed to Jesse. The note is signed Hanzo.

McCree doesn't want to read the middle. Sits down at the table with it still clutched between his hands.

'Jesse,' the note reads, 'I know you probably will not forgive me but I am going. First light is here. I must find my brother. You have been more help than you can imagine but I cannot keep you from your life any longer. You must not give up what you have for me.

'I will not give it up for you.'

McCree blinks. His toes curl against the wood of the floor.

'Genji was right. You are beautiful when you sleep. I shall have him write you when I find him. And I will find him. Be at peace Jesse, live your life Jesse. We shall write from Japan--Shimada Hanzo.'

McCree is shaking. The paper trembles, falls.

It's impossible.

Unfair.

'I know you will not forgive me.'

McCree lowers his head to his arms, the note crumpled under his elbow. He is shaking, shaken.

Abandoned.

McCree swallows, harsh and grating in the confines of his arms.

And for the first time in a long time, McCree begins to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Too dramatic?? Too much angst!?? I dunno. This thing is a monster, I don't know what the hell I'm doing.
> 
> My commenters, my lovelies. I'm so sorry for this chapter end (I'm not sorry) and I love each and every one of you for sticking with this wild ride.
> 
> Comments, mistakes, needed tags, question etc etc etc hit me up, you know where


	9. Chapter 9

He goes back to Santa Fe.

He has nowhere else to go back to. Nothing else left from his past to connect with.

Hanzo had left him two hundred dollars, tucked into McCree's rucksack. The money, well-intentioned as it probably is, makes McCree feel like a whore. He leaves the bills crumpled on the table for whoever owns the cabin. Gabe or a stranger, McCree doesn't care.

Hanzo had left him a horse as well. One canteen of water.

Peacekeeper.

Everything else had been spirited away, vanished. Like Hanzo. Like Gabe. Maybe never even there to begin with. Hanzo's letter had laid, wrinkled, tear-stained on the table like an accusation.

A corpse.

Proof of a crime.

McCree takes his shit: one bag, his hat, his gun; and heads home. He leaves Hanzo's letter where it is. He is not Hanzo. The letter doesn't feel like forgiveness or an apology to him.

Hanzo's letter is murder.

McCree will not look for him.

A lot of north to the north. Too much for one man.

McCree boards the train at the water stop junction where it had left him.

McCree goes back to the only place left he can call home.

 

***  
"I was not expecting you back so soon," Reinhardt booms, hand on McCree's neck. His general store is pretty busy. A few of the shoppers glance at the two men.

High noon, a day and a half later.

Home.

"Things ahh..." McCree doesn't know what to say.

What can he say? Things didn't work out? Hanzo's loyalty to his family out-weighed any burgeoning feelings he had for me? Hanzo abandoned me now so he wouldn't feel guilty about it later?

Self-indulgent nonsense.

Reinhardt waves a massive hand. "When you are home from long trip early, it can only mean one of so many things." Reinhardt smiles, tips his head. "Very good success. Very terrible failure. And you my friend..." Reinhardt squeezes McCree's shoulder. "You are not smiling like someone who has had any sort of good time."

Parts of it had been good though.

So, so many parts.

Every little instance of Hanzo, opening up to McCree. Letting himself get close. McCree indulging in it. Offering pieces of himself as well. More intimate than friendship, after just three days. Childish. Ridiculous.

"I dunno," McCree says, truthfully.

Reinhardt smiles again. Gives McCree one of his over-exaggerated blinks. Winking. "Miss Ana told me to tell you to stop by once you were back. I believe she intends to berate you for leaving with such short notice."

McCree returns the smile. The old woman who runs the cat house would have a problem with it. Their businesses feed off one another, swapping patrons at appointed hours. A drunk stumbles from the saloon to the whore-house. A well-fucked man needs a drink after a good lay.

A symbiosis.

"I'll stop by before opening up shop then," McCree assures the big man. "Thank you."

"Nah. Nah. No thanks needed. Was my pleasure to help you and your friend."

The word stings at McCree's grin. A barb behind his eyes again. Tightness in his throat.

McCree nods.

***  
'We shall be attached.'

'I will not give it up for you.'

'Show me your face, Jesse. Let me see you take his cock. Come for us, okay?'

Ghosts of ghosts.

The glass McCree is filling shakes in his grip. The bar is crowded tonight. Four days being closed has apparently helped his business.

McCree pushes the liquor down to the man who ordered it. Already stinking drunk. There bar is noisy, brightly alive. Chatter and laughter and music.

Good signs.

But McCree still feels like shit. 

'Atonement isn't all it's cracked up to be.'

'Genji said you had your weaknesses.'

The echoes are like shells of things. Exoskeletons. Brittle to the touch, fragile.

He fills another glass.

Reinhardt is by the window. His own bottle of schnapps. He looks happier than a cat with the cream. 

Hanzo's knees, like islands. Hanzo's deep loneliness.

McCree wishes now that he had brought the letter with him.

'I will not give it up for you.'

'I know you will not forgive me.'

The snippets he remember are like little shards of glass.

"Bar man," a voice calls and for just a moment the rough American drawl could be Hanzo's lilt. His halting foreign tone.

But it is not Hanzo.

Not even close.

It hasn't been, not any of the times McCree has heard him.

'Do you want me, Jesse McCree?'

'Oh God, Jesse. Jesse. Fuck. I think I'm close. Are close Jesse? Nng Christ, will you show me?'

'He looked at me like an animal who wanted to devour me whole. Should I let him, brother?'

'Watashi wa shinu tsumoridesu. Ī nda yo...Jesse. Ī nda yo. Ī...'

"You seem distracted," one of the men at the bar says. He's a clerk in the sheriffs office. Prim little man. Too prim.

People talk.

McCree sighs. "You wouldn't believe how many times I've heard that today," McCree says. He refills the man's beer.

"It's bound to happen. You're usually so talkative," the man sips at the drink. Eyes cast downward, blushing slightly.

People talk.

'Genji said you had your weaknesses.'

"Been a rough couple days I guess."

The man nods, takes a large swallow of his beer, drinking it down. He's absolutely scarlet. "Anything I can do," he asks, "to help?"

McCree isn't even the least bit tempted. But he smiles anyway.

He thinks of Hanzo, laid out under him, Hanzo's eyes half-closed, throat working over every breath, chest heaving.

"I...it's more something I gotta work out on my own," McCree says. Gentle as he can.

Three days ago he probably would have taken that offer. Three days ago he would have fucked that man senseless.

The clerk flushes at the rejection. Hides his face behind his glass. McCree should feel worse than he does about it.

Someone down the bar hails him.

McCree goes.

When he looks back, minutes later, the man is gone.

Scattered change left on the bar top. His last glass still half-full, sitting abandoned.

McCree sighs.

'But I do not think you are bad and I do not think Genji was wrong.'

'Jesse, you do not need to be upset. You warned him, he did not listen, it's the nature of it. You mustn't dwell. Guilt will get us nowhere.'

'Ī nda yo. Daijōbu. Daijōbu...'

***

It's 2am by the time McCree starts closeup. Kicks the last lingering drunks to the dusty street. He wipes clean the last few glasses, turns one in his hands.

He should soak them.

He thinks of Hanzo, hair still dripping, holding McCree's arm.

Hanzo with blood on his chin, blood in his beard. Holding his hand out, blood pooled in his palm.

A tight feeling in McCree's stomach. The hairs along the back of his neck prickling. He turns in time to see the man enter, sliding through the doors.

McCree should have locked them.

Why didn't he lock them?

Distracted. Sloppy.

Hanzo on McCree's dick. Lips shiny with spit, oh so red and stretched.

The man has cleaned up some. Not so much dirt in his mustache, the defined part of his hair under the hat. He only looks slightly surprised to see McCree watching him.

"Where's the chink?" The man asks. He's holding a gun.

Inevitable.

These things always come back around.

McCree swallows. He's still holding the dirty tumbler, places it upside-down on the bar.

"Hanzo's Japanese."

The man's surprise would be comical under other circumstances. Lip pulling back from his teeth, eyes widening. Little mustache twitching.

"I look like I give a fuck?"

"Guess not," McCree says. He should feel nervous, intimidated. But he's never been particularly easy to cow.

"I'm gonna ask you to put your hands up nice and easy, bar man. Settle this the way we should have settled it days ago. Like real men."

McCree, to his credit, doesn't scoff. It's a close thing. He puts his hands up, nice and easy.

"How's your friend?" He asks, coolly.

The gun shakes in the blond man's hand. Six-shooter, coal grey, same one as last time, probably, McCree can't rightly remember. All he can think of is the gun tight to Hanzo's temple, digging against Hanzo's skin.

"Bad off, no thanks ta you. Probably'll never see again." The man is frowning. He's still got his back to the door. "So where's the fuckin' Jap?"

He must have given something of a fuck, to use the correct slur this time. McCree doesn't point it out though, isn't exactly looking to get a bullet through the forehead.

His mind is already working ahead. Peacekeeper is near the center of the bar, tucked back in it's usual spot. With the bar between himself and the intruder, the whole thing is almost too easy.

"Where's your mute pal?"

"Asked ya first, partner."

In another time, maybe McCree and this man could have been friends. The same sort of mouthy. He's got the skinny, rough good looks of the men he and Genji regularly picked.

"He's gone," McCree says. Ripping the scab off. The words make his throat feel raw. Bleeding.

He will not cry in front of this asshole.

"Used ya and fled," the mustached man says, there's a laugh in his words. Cruel little twist. "Left ya holdin' the tab, I'm afraid. What ya get, turnin' on your kind."

Honestly. White men.

McCree drops to one knee as the man pulls the trigger. One of the bottles displayed behind the bar explodes. Shards of glass like rain.

Peacekeeper is warm and comfortable in McCree's grip.

The man is cursing, under his breath.

He's not good at this.

McCree can imagine this is his first time. Making a stand alone. Some sort of righteous plan here, revenge.

"You're a fuckin' coward," the man yells. Low baiting.

McCree rolls, silent as he can, toward the far end of the bar. He can hear the man, no longer by the doors. Footsteps on the hard wood. Careful things. Trying to tread lightly.

McCree reaches the end of his cover, crouched still. Head tucked down by his knee.

Blood on his trousers.

A chunk of glass in his knee. McCree can't even feel it. Too much adrenaline.

He pops up.

The mustached man sees him, turns. But it's too late.

McCree's shot catches the man in the shoulder, spins him. The blond's gun fires. Once, twice, three times. Shot one goes wide. Splinters the polished wood of the bar top.

The mustached man lies, groaning, on the floor.

Too easy.

McCree starts to walk over.

Stops.

Pain in his stomach.

Blooming heat.

McCree looks down. A bullet hole in his wooden arm. A blossom of blood on his shirt, lower left hand side. Bright, undeniable pain.

Gut-shot. Just his luck.

He thinks of Genji. Genji's slimy, red-grey insides.

McCree staggers over to the man on the floor.

Peacekeeper is steady in his hands.

The man's shoulder is wrecked. Blood on the man's face, blood in the man's little mustache.

Genji with blood on his cheeks. Strips of metal, slicing him open.

The man coughs. Groans again. Shoulders curling. It must hurt. McCree's gut stings, foreign heat, lances of pain.

"Fuck you," the man says. He's glaring at Peacekeeper. Lip trembling just a little bit.

McCree thinks of the bankers, over the years, all the men he has had in this position before.

He thinks of Genji, always so guiltless. At least all those other men hadn't deserved it.

McCree pulls the trigger. Two quick successions.

He can't even pretend to feel bad about it this time.

A good person. What a fucking joke.

***  
'You must remain still. I do not wish to hurt you further.'

"I said remain still, Jesse, you're lucky this bullet missed the important bits. Wiggling like you are's going to drive it deeper."

Ana is frowning at him. Holding the forceps by her face. Sticky and red with McCree's blood.

McCree licks his lips. "Sorry ma'am."

"You know what happens when the stomach lining is punctured?"

McCree shakes his head. The rolling waves of pain have calmed somewhat with the liquor Ana forced down his throat. The tiny shot of cocaine she had give him.

The scene, the pain, feels far away. Muted. A conversation heard across a room.

He can't stop thinking of Hanzo.

'You're doing so wonderfully for me.'

McCree's arm, his missing one, his absent self, itches. The prosthetic twitches. McCree listens to the click, click of his fingers against the table Ana has laid him out on and breathes. He can feel his pulse, behind his eyes, a rapid thing.

Above him, the old woman is still talking.

Some of her hairs have escaped her braid. McCree reaches out to tuck them back in place. Gets his hand slapped for the effort.

"Guessing you're feeling it?" Ana says. The forceps open and close. She licks her lips.

"Your hair is messy."

She frowns hard, good eye narrowing. "You're feeling it all right. Jesse, I need you to look at the ceiling. And don't move."

He looks at the ceiling.

For a moment, the pain in his stomach flares up. McCree wants to wriggle away from it, the cocoon of the cocaine fog breaking around him. McCree grunts instead. Fingers scrabbling against the table. Wood on wood, scratching, distracting.

McCree's legs shake.

There are cracks in the ceiling.

McCree thinks of Hanzo.

'Only a few more to go.'

McCree thinks of Genji.

'Gabriel says it is going to scar. Can you think how badass I will look when it does?'

McCree grunts again. Swallowing convulsively.

McCree thinks of Gabe.

'This self-loathing you carry will be the death of you.'

He looks down. Ana is bent over his stomach, brow furrowed in concentration. Sweat on her neck. The forceps are in him. The sight is surreal, the metal disappearing into his skin.

'Show me your face, Jesse.'

McCree shudders. The forceps vibrate with his breathing and Ana turns her head to glare at him.

"Still, Jesse. I am almost done. You are doing wonderfully."

McCree bites his lip hard enough to draw blood. A bright, distracting pain. He tips his head back and looks at the ceiling. Ana's hand squeezes the muscle of his thigh.

Ana makes a noise, triumphant little crow. McCree looks down again.

She's got the bullet, pinched in the forceps. Bloody little thing. McCree smiles at her, he can't help it, she's grinning so widely at him.

His heart is pounding. The pain ebbs and flows like waves from the wound.

"Now we just have to patch you up and you'll be good as new," Ana says. She's already turning, rustling through the little pack of medical supplies she keeps.

Once upon a time, Ana had been a medic for the Mexican rebels. McCree thinks of the bullet, Peackeeper's bullet, exploding out the back of the mustached man's skull. Bits of brain and bone splattering across the hardwood.

He giggles, loopy. The cocaine riding high in his blood. 

Ana looks at him. A box of matches. Gunpowder.

Better than a real doctor any day.

***  
McCree in Santa Fe, one week later. Still bandaged and sore. Locked in his room while Ana runs his saloon. She and Reinhardt taking turns.

Home, though it feels less and less like that everyday.

Home.

The whole affair has been ruled legal, self-defense. Reckless vigilante taken down by the upstanding citizen. McCree tries not to roll his eyes when the sheriff hands down the verdict. The sheriff smiling all the while. A regular customer of McCree's.

But justice is served and life goes on.

McCree clicks the fingers together.

Music pipes through the floor, cheery, tinkling tune. McCree can hear people talking. Laughter. Happiness.

McCree had tried to return to bartending the day after the shootout. Ana had knocked him out with another shot of cocaine and tied him to a chair.

Would have been kinky in any other circumstance.

One week. It's been one week.

McCree has a nice molting of bruises on his chest, spreading from the gunshot wound and out. A byproduct of using gunpowder to seal up the puncture, McCree supposes.

One week. The skin around the bruises has begun to yellow, to heal.

McCree still has not stopped thinking of Hanzo. Of Genji.

Moping, Ana calls it.

Recovering is Reinhardt's word.

Neither are right. Both are right.

"I need to go," McCree says.

Reinhardt looks up from the book he was reading. Sitting by the window. Keeping McCree company, like he's fragile.

Hanzo holding McCree's arm. Gentle, gentle.

"Go where, my friend?"

McCree shakes his head. Presses his wooden hand against the pattern on his skin. The hair has started to grow back in, itching as it does.

"Away from here."

"Here is your home."

But it isn't. Home had been with Genji, sleeping under the stars. McCree for fifteen years had pretended that this had been home. But home had been spooned behind Hanzo; listening to his quiet, breathy snores.

His first real taste of home in years.

"They say there's a colony in California," McCree says. Staring at his hands. The puckered flesh of the gunshot wound, scabbed over in the center. "Something about inner-peace."

Reinhardt shrugs. "This new world may not be so new to us, but there are many, coming here, bringing new things, yah?"

"So you don't know anything about it? Them?"

Reinhardt shakes his massive head. The book he was reading sits across his knee. The title is in German. 'Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft'. McCree doesn't know what it means.

"Inner-peace?" Reinhardt repeats, thoughtfully. He wears a crucifix, little flash of gold around his neck, this is not the first time McCree has noticed it.

McCree thinks of Gabe. Gabe had gone in for all that shit too, one time.

"And that is what you think you need, ya?" Reinhardt asks. His eye is bright, gaze soft. "Will inner-peace make you feel better?"

"Kinda the point a inner-peace, ain't it? To be at peace, to feel better?"

"If it is so easily achieved, yah then I suppose. Sounds miraculous, if you ask me though, eh?"

McCree shrugs. Scratches his hand through his beard. "Stayin' here sure as hell ain't helping."

"Would you tell me what happened?" Reinhardt asks, not for the first time.

Ana has asked too, in her subtle way. Bringing him tea. Running his bar for him. Checking in when Reinhardt isn't there. A constant presence.

McCree shakes his head. "How do Catholics handle the whole murder thing?" McCree asks. He stares at his nails, picks at the cuticle. His wooden fingers have lost some of their dexterity. He presses against the skin until it hurts.

Reinhardt touches the delicate chain around his throat. "Confession, always helps, yah? Though I think dat maybe it's not what you seek. Do you believe in God, McCree?"

A heavy question. A heavy subject.

His cock between Hanzo's thighs. Hanzo's hair, hanging over his shoulder, choppy and dark.

"I don't know."

Reinhardt makes a motion with his hand. "Confession is coming to God with true sorrow. Confession is knowing that everyday, we let God down, yah? Dat we can never be as good as He wants, dat we can only endlessly strive to be better. Catholics, as a general rule, don't hold up for inner-peace."

Reinhardt is smiling as he says it.

"Not really God you're looking for forgiveness from anyway, yah?" he continues, "And not for dat snake of a man you shot."

"No," McCree says. "I'm not sorry for him."

Reinhardt nods. "Maybe you should go. Could be good. The trip. The distance."

"Will you and Ana keep--,"

"She and I will run this place like it is our own. She would buy it from you, you know, if you asked."

"I don't need the money. And it's nice to have...somewhere to come back to."

"Come home to," Reinhardt corrects. Stubborn.

McCree smiles, he can't help it.

"If I get any letters..." He doesn't expect any. Hanzo is gone.

'We shall write from Japan.'

McCree knows in his heart he will never hear from either Shimada again. McCree flexes his wooden hand. Imagines his whole body like this, phantom feelings and blunt pressure. No real sensation.

How Genji could live like this is a mystery to him.

Inner-peace.

Forgiveness.

Atonement.

"I will put them in your room. With dat bag."

Hanzo's suitcase. The one he had left. McCree had opened it on arriving back in Santa Fe, hoping that maybe, just maybe, it would provide him with some clue as to Hanzo's whereabouts. Genji's.

It had been full of clothes. Traditional Japanese garb, rich, embroidered fabrics. Silks. And there at the bottom, tied together with old string--

Letters.

So many letters. Genji's tight, even scrawl across each. Pages and pages.

Sentimental.

McCree had tucked then back into the bag, brought the whole thing into his own room. For safe-keeping. A little trickle of hope. A wish.

Fucking sentimental.

McCree sits up, groans at the tight feeling in his stomach when he does, little echoed memories of pain. Reinhardt stands to help him, but McCree waves him off.

"I'm fine," he says.

A lie, but he'll stand by it. A lie, but what else does he have?

***

Two weeks and an agonizing train ride later and McCree stands outside the monastery nestled in hills of Southern California. The sprawl of the land so starkly different than the dusty, structured mountains of McCree's life. Green grasses, plump wildlife. Peaceful and serene.

Inner-peace.

McCree stands outside the temple, uncomfortable for a variety of reasons. Questioning his choices, now, of course, when it is far too late to change his mind.

The gates to the temple are open, welcoming. But the woman who had directed him here had warned him that a majority of the monks speak little to no English.

Stupid to come here.

McCree stares up at the walls; rough-hewn stone, something so old-world.

He thinks of Hanzo's cheekbones, Hanzo's aristocratic bearing. What Hanzo would think of him now, so blindly seeking religion to amend these broken pieces of himself.

Self-loathing, self-pity. Some disgusting, contradictory mess of the two. Sludged up and left to air.

McCree hates the feeling. Hates Hanzo for making him stop and think and analyze all these terrible parts of himself. Hates Gabe for being right. Hates Genji for involving Hanzo in the first place.

Mostly, though, McCree hates himself.

He stares up at the walls of the monastery. He wants to go home.

He wants to be with Hanzo again.

He wants to go back in time, slap himself and Genji for ever thinking that working the rail was a good idea.

It's not the first time he's wished for any of this.

"Can I help you?" A voice asks.

McCree turns. Despite being pulled so abruptly from his thoughts, McCree doesn't jump or flinch. Old habits. Old instincts.

The man who had spoken is standing at the open gate. He has a youthful face; a skinny-limbed, bow-legged way of standing. He is more tan than either Genji or Hanzo. Softer, despite the thinness. Thick lashes giving him something of a perpetual squint.

"The dai-oshō were wondering; you have been standing there an awfully long time," the man continues when McCree hasn't answered. "Do you need some assistance?"

"I don't know," McCree answers. "You live here?"

It's something to ask, something to say. The man, in his yellow robes with his bald head and sandaled feet, could only have come from the temple.

"Yes," the man says, tipping his head to glance back at the building behind him. "Do you come seeking shelter?" 

"I don't know," McCree repeats.

"So you stand at our gate," the man says, he's nodding now. Something sage-like in the motion. "Do you feel the universe has left you floating?" He steeples his fingers in front of him. "A ship in the waves, anchor-less? Do you feel the Iris has abandoned you? Millions of souls connect around you, but yours is solitary in its suffering."

"You a priest?"

The man laughs, it could only reasonably be called a titter. A giggle. His shoulders shake. He is smiling.

"No," the man says. "But I do a very good impression, do I not? You may come in, my friend. We are open to all."

McCree touches the brim of his hat, tips it just slightly.

"Name's McCree."

"McCree," the man says. 'Muh-cree'. Same as Hanzo.

"You speak real good English."

"Thank you. The dai-oshō sent me down because I speak it the best of anyone here. One day I hope to travel, such mastery can only help me in my cause." The man touches the gate, thin fingers lacing through the gating. "You may call me Zenyatta."

"Zenyatta."

The man nods. "Yes. I am a monk here."

"That's not a priest?"

"I am afraid not. Do you require a priest? We do not perform exorcisms here I am afraid."

Another joke. McCree chuckles, surprised himself at how genuine it is.

"I need a confession."

Zenyatta steps back, through the gate, into the courtyard. McCree follows. "Confession?"

"Somewhere to put all my sins."

Zenyatta laughs again. He leads the two of them away from the main building, into the small garden just beyond the stone walls. "Sins?Is it not hard to feel inspired when weighted down by such a notion, McCree?"

McCree stops short.

Zenyatta is smiling.

He thinks of Hanzo. Blood in his palm.

He thinks of Genji. Blood on his face.

"I was told you all are into helping people settle. Gettin' inner-peace and all. I...I want that."

"So you wish to join our order?"

"I guess," McCree says. His human fingers are sweating, despite the breeze, the loveliness of the day.

Zenyatta is looking at him. His eyes are a shade of grey between his lashes. He is smiling.

Gentle, gentle.

"I do not wish to offend you, McCree," Zenyatta says.

"You're turnin' me away?"

"Do you truly think our ways, our order, is what you want to dedicate yourself to?" Zenyatta asks.

Gentle, gentle.

"I...I dunno."

"And that is why--"

"I get it."

"Please let me finish, McCree. You say you need confession, your past sins need a place to lie. Your past sins are not you, McCree. Such an idea is disheartening and foolish.

"How you feel now, and what you do, that is the important thing."

McCree stares down at his feet. The grass curling over the toe of his boot. Green and alive.

"You do not believe me?"

Hanzo above him, panting.

The first banker McCree ever killed, young and green and playing tough; his throat ripped out by the bullet, the spray of blood across the glass. And Genji afterward, hand on McCree's head while McCree sobbed and sobbed.

"Even the really awful stuff?" McCree asks.

"You have shortcomings in your life, I am sure. Overconfidence is a flimsy shield and no one is perfect. But why do you need to be?

"Live as a good person. That is what we teach here. You need not live here to learn it."

"That doesn't really make me feel any better." McCree says.

Zenyatta laughs again. "It takes time perhaps. You may stay with us for as long as required. To join us however, you would have to shave that beard, and how could we ask that of you? Visitors though, they are a different matter."

"Don't I gotta talk to some...I dunno, like higher up, before you okay that?"

Zenyatta smiles, standing silhouetted by the light, he could almost be divine. "Do not worry, McCree. We have had many like you, visitors, lost ones, the lonely. Many, many."

"What do you mean?"

"You have killed men, have you not?"

McCree meets his gaze. The light has gone golden with the day, the setting sun.

McCree thinks of Hanzo in the moonlight. Cold and silver. Staring at the sky, at the stars. Hanzo's throat in the darkness, Hanzo's lips.

"You don't need to answer. You wear the weight of them on your shoulders--in that false arm," Zenyatta says. "And you are unhappy." He makes a motion with his hand, a slow arch. Thin fingers tracing the air. "The seeds of your past have borne you fruit, but not something sweet to the taste. But your remorse has brought to bear new seeds. Have you learned from your mistakes, McCree?"

"Somewhat."

Zenyatta chuckles. "Then you are on your way to a better harvest already. We had a young man here, not so long ago who had killed many people, hurt many people. Karma had brought to him such a burden I think he felt his soul might never transition beyond his suffering.

"But that is the beauty of the soul is it not? Once you've accepted harmony, the universe will embrace you. And you will heal."

"Where is he now?"

Zenyatta blinks. "Far from here. Your name is McCree." Zenyatta smiles. "I should have put it together faster. This world is not so big; the echoes we leave upon one another are infinite. Your first name is Jesse, is it not?"

"How did--What are you talking about?"

"I mean Genji, of course. A most apt pupil when he put his mind to it. He spoke often and highly of you."

"Now hold on there," McCree starts, reaching out. Zenyatta's shoulder under his palm is cool, frail. Like a leaf. Zenyatta looks up at him, calmly. "You knew Genji?"

"Know. Far from here does not mean absent. Genji writes."

"Where is he?"

"Has he not come to see you himself?"

McCree shakes his head. "I don't think he's forgiven me for...everything."

"Then you are foolish. Genji loved you, and though he and I did not see eye to eye on all the principles I hold dear, he and I agreed on that. Unconditional love always fosters forgiveness."

"Will you tell me where he is?"

"You would run after him?"

"Unconditional love and forgiveness don't mean I shouldn't apologize." McCree says.

"Perhaps. I am truly surprised he has not yet come to you," Zenyatta says, he is looking over McCree's shoulder, contemplating. "Ashamed of his appearance still. Uneasy in his form."

"Is it real bad?"

"Your arm is a work of art. Wooden and well kept, but still shocking to see. Genji is a masterpiece of craft. But when he first came here, he did not even consider himself human. A thing. A tortured thing."

"But where--"

"I am not going to tell you," Zenyatta says, "because it is not my place. Genji's soul seeks harmony. He will come to see you eventually, I promise."

"How can you promise that?"

"The universe must remain in balance and the soul heals better when it is no longer alone. He has really never come to see you?"

"No. How long since he left this place?"

"About a year."

A year. A whole year.

"Hanzo is here." McCree says.

Zenyatta tips his head, McCree watches the words process. "His brother...here?"

McCree makes a sweeping gesture.

Hanzo, on that first day, hand rotating, palm flat.

"Here. America."

Zenyatta nods. "And that is why you feel so rushed?"

"Did Genji tell you about Hanzo?"

"Things. Little things. He talked mostly about you. The guilt the two of you share. Acceptance is the first step toward forgiveness. Even for the self. But you needn't rush. Genji has never expressed any desire to return to Japan."

"You're telling me to be patient?"

Zenyatta nods. The sun has dipped below the line of the wall, everything is steeped in shadow. "Patience is one of the most difficult things. And most rewarding."

"And you really think he'll come to see me?"

"I do. You may stay here if you wish, McCree, but I think you would be better waiting where he knows. He used to watch you, I do not know how long ago, but he did not know how to approach you. What to say."

"He told you that?"

"He did. Your broken relationship, that dear, dear friendship, is something I think he regrets. Almost more, perhaps, than the loss of his body."

"So this whole trip was a waste then."

"Do you think so?" Zenyatta asks, touching his lips. Thin finger balanced on his chin. "Think on all I have said, McCree, and peace will find you. Live now, do good, and karma will reward you justly."

**

McCree leaves for Santa Fe the next day.

He thinks on Zenyatta's words the whole way back.

'Have you learned from your mistakes, McCree?'

McCree thinks of that first man he killed. Backed up against the teller booth, McCree's gun shaking in his hand. An accident, in the end. McCree had warned him as an empty threat, and then the gun had gone off and it had been too late to take it back. McCree thinks of the ones that followed. Death after death. Fourteen in total.

He sinks down further in his seat, trying to get comfortable. Hat pulled low over his eyes. The train rumbles beneath him. McCree tries to burrow deeper into his memories, tries to will the groaning of the breaks away.

He thinks about his lips on Hanzo's cheek. Hanzo's mouth on his cock.

Another sin, a different one.

'Is it not hard to feel inspired when weighted down by such a notion?'

But there is no guilt, no shame, in him when he thinks about that. When he dwells on thoughts of Hanzo. His wooden fingers sinking to the knuckle into Hanzo's body. Hanzo shaking against him.

He's never felt guilty about his sexuality; neither in the promiscuity of it or the orientation.

People talk, of course.

The prim little clerk is shunned in Santa Fe because people talk and people suspect and people are absolute fucking hypocrites. But McCree is a natural flirt, McCree blends better.

The murders, those feel like a weight.

McCree sighs through his nose.

Somewhere, far away, Genji is thirty-five and living in a body mostly made of chrome.

Somewhere, far away, Hanzo is still searching.

Or maybe, by some miracle, he's found him by now.

McCree thinks of Reyes, that awful, cold, reptilian stare.

The train whistle screeches.

McCree thinks of the first banker. Breathes out through his nose.

Has he learned from his mistakes?

Hanzo's note, like a body, laying on the table.

The banker's body, slumped against the wall, glass of the teller booth splattered with his lifeblood. The hot font of it spurting from his throat. The sudden jarring punch of the bullet from the gun.

McCree's elbow had ached for days after.

Aftershocks.

His fifth bank robbery. He and Genji and Reyes had run through the scenario, over and over. What could happen. What to say to the little bankers who wanted to be heroes. And McCree had stuck to the script, spat his empty threat and the man had still stood his ground.

And then he was laying there, twitching. Blood down his chest. Blood across McCree's face. The spray of it. Warm and alive.

Genji, holding him after. Two years younger, but he'd still looped his arms around McCree's neck with his chin nestled in McCree's hair and he'd done his damn best to cheer McCree up.

'Jesse, you do not need to be upset. You warned him, he did not listen, it's the nature of it. You mustn't dwell. Guilt will get us nowhere.'

'If we cannot run jobs, Jesse, what will become of us? You must get over this. How can I help you? What can I do?'

Soft and soothing. Words and words.

That moment--eighteen and stupid and shaken--McCree had realized how much he really loved Genji. Wanted to fuck him too, sure. Eighteen and stupid and shaken, how could he not. What else even was love?

Now, sitting on the train, nineteen years in the future, McCree presses his hand against the gunshot wound. Digs his fingers in. The pain is grounding, jarring.

He never stopped loving Genji, even when he was scared and ashamed, running south to avoid all the shit he couldn't face. He was scared of Genji's death, Genji's rebuttal, but he loved Genji still.

Loves Genji still.

And Hanzo.

Fucking Hanzo.

Hanzo with his infatuation with a fictional McCree, with the McCree Genji had always written him to be. Hanzo tearing open the poorly sutured wounds of McCree's past.

Hanzo.

God.

McCree bites his lip. He will not cry again. He will not.

He loves Hanzo too. There it is, the truth of it. He loves Hanzo. An instant thing. At first sight. Lust and longing and loneliness all rolled up together.

McCree loves Hanzo.

McCree loves Genji.

Differently, but equally.

The train bumps and jostles along the track and McCree leans back in his seat and pushes his hat as hard as he can over his face.

He loves them both.

They are his home. They are his balance.

'Have you learned from your mistakes, McCree?'

'We shall be attached.'

'You are my partner, Jesse, and nothing will ever change that. I promise.'

God damn it.

***

McCree returns to his life.

The in-between phase.

Life gets better. Not easier, never easier, but it hurts less. Each day gets a little less painful.

A month after his trip to California and McCree's gut-shot has scarred up, shiny and pink against the curve of his abs. His heart still beats on his sleeve, too open, too raw to scar.

Little things that remind him of Hanzo prick at him, still. But it hurts a little less each time.

Reinhardt and Ana are there for him. Their presence helps him bounce back a little quicker then before. When McCree gets over himself and his past and his memories and just accepts their well-intentioned meddling, he finds the pain fading too.

'The soul heals better when it is no longer alone.'

A month after his trip to California and McCree is really, truly, doing better. Is working his way back to the axis he had established post-Genji, pre-Hanzo.

Which is why, when he comes down to the bar floor to open shop on a Tuesday, it's so surprising, shocking, unreal to see Hanzo sitting there.

Same as the first time, one month back.

Hair up and arms crossed. Fucking buttoned to the collar with his little gold cufflinks.

It cannot be real.

Hanzo is looking at him. Sitting there like he belongs, like nothing has changed, like he didn't break in. Hanzo is looking at him.

McCree feels like he's dreaming. His grip white-knuckled on the banister of the stairs. McCree could almost believe he was dreaming if it weren't for Hanzo's facial hair, a little too shaggy for as put together as Hanzo had been.

Such a little detail.

Fucking facial hair.

Hanzo is not smiling, his expression is the same neutral little frown he had worn that first day.

"Is this..." McCree starts. His voice cracking. Breaking. Pent up emotion. "You're here right?"

Hanzo looks down at his hands, fisted in one another. Elbow touching where the bullet had ripped through the bar top, one month ago. The scratch in the wood McCree has never gotten around to fixing.

Hanzo looks toward the doors.

McCree follows his gaze.

And there, by the doors--

"Hello, Jesse," Genji says. His voice is slightly deeper than all those years ago. Just a touch different.

This is happening.

"It's been a long time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you say Veronica only knows how to end chapters on cliffhangers???
> 
> Wow so that chapter took forever. Sorry for all the introspection, I am...not confident in my skills as a writer with sad characters. So I hope it worked. Big shout out to my girl mmysbathow cuz she def helped me get over my insecurities in this one.
> 
> Also all that Japanese is courtesy of google translate, I have absolutely no bilingual skills. Please let me know if you see anything glaringly off there.
> 
> Tags have been updated. Any questions comments needed tags blah blah blah lemme know you know how <3


	10. Chapter 10

"Heard you got kicked out of the monastery, Jesse. Takes a lot to piss off a Buddhist."

McCree doesn't know what to say. Genji's tone is so fond, like no time at all has passed. Fifteen years erased in the blink of an eye. McCree's mouth responds before his brain has even fully caught up.

"Well, I refused to shave my head so..." McCree swallows down the lump in his throat. "Can't deny the world all this glorious hair, you know?"

He feels lightheaded. Dizzy. His death-grip on the railing the only thing keeping him from tumbling down the stairs and breaking his damn neck.

Genji is smiling.

His face, though scarred and leaner with age, is the same face. The same vivid expressions.

McCree glances back over at Hanzo.

"Guess you found him, huh?"

Hanzo tips his head. Frowning still. "I suppose I did," he says.

"Wouldn't shut up about you the whole time," Genji says, nose wrinkling just the slightest. There is a scar across Genji's nose. One cutting into his lip. Several like bullet holes along his chin.

He's wearing a button down, an overcoat. Impossible to see the rest of the damage. But there is silver chrome bracings under his ears, running down his neck and into his coat.

"So you going to come down here and say a proper hello, Jesse, or shall Hanzo and I just go?"

"No! Don't even tease...I don't...I wasn't expecting ta..." McCree's knees are shaking. The muscles trembling from the shock and suddenness of all of this. "If I try to walk down these steps right now you better be ready to catch me, partner, cuz I dunno I have the strength to make it."

"Old age catching up with you there, Jesse? A shame. Japan awaits, you know," Genji says. Shooting his brother a look. A roll of the eyes. "I'm not sure how much time I am allowed to waste here."

His hair is slightly longer than before, falls across his forehead and into his eyes. Genji pushes it back behind his ears. His right hand is laced with silver.

Hanzo huffs at the bar and Genji's eye roll is equally matched by Hanzo's glare.

McCree takes the first step down. Visibly shaking. His hand slips along the banister, palm slick with his own sweat. He feels so weak. So taken by surprise.

This is not what it was supposed to be like.

He makes it to the bottom though, before his knees give out. Genji laughs, good natured, smiling, as McCree sits on the final step.

He walks over. His steps are even, unhindered. He seems perfect, mobile, human.

Genji crouches down across from McCree. Reaches out to touch McCree's knee. This close McCree can hear the clicking, joints made of metal in motion. Just like McCree's arm.

"Not quite the reunion you expected, huh, Jesse?"

McCree shakes his head. "I just wasn't..." He looks down. Genji's hand on his knee is delicate, webbed metal and chrome. More high-tech than McCree's arm. "I'm sorry, Genji."

The hand on his knee squeezes down. Genji runs the fingers of his other hand along McCree's jaw, touches McCree's ear.

"I'm sorry too. I should never have left you so long."

"I should never have left you at all. You shouldn'ta--if it weren't for me that is, we wouldn'ta..."

Genji uses his grip on McCree's ear to pull McCree's chin up. "Don't do this," Genji says, shaking his head. Frowning. He looks amazingly like Hanzo in that moment.

Hanzo, still seated at the bar, is very pointedly not looking at the two of them.

"I'm just, Genji, I'm so, so sorry. I can't even pretend to know what you've gone through and I don't--"

"You have nothing to apologize for," Genji says, standing. He holds his hand out and McCree takes it. Genji glances over to Hanzo. Smiles, mischievous and bright. "Well you maybe have one thing to apologize for, but let's drink first, huh? In honor of the lost years. We have a lot to make up for, you know? I have missed you terribly."

McCree nods as Genji's arm slides around his shoulders. The chrome spreads under his chin, almost like a strap, gleaming even in the relatively dim gaslights.

"I've missed you too, Genji," McCree says. "Christ, I've missed you so much."

Hanzo is picking at the scratch in the counter. McCree sits next to him, heavily, while Genji slips around to the other side, inspecting McCree's liquor options with a seriousness that could only be in jest.

McCree wants to touch Hanzo's shoulder, or his knee, small reassurances. But he doesn't. He can't. Hanzo looks at him like he wants to speak, lip between his teeth, brown eyes wide and liquid clear.

But then Genji turns to them, holding a bottle of dragon fire and the moment passes.

Hanzo looks away.

McCree doesn't touch him.

"You're still making this shit?" Genji says, oblivious to the tension he has killed. He pulls three glasses from under the counter and pours a small amount into each. "You really are becoming a sentimental old man on me, Jesse."

"I don't know why you're complainin'. It's good."

"What do you call it again?"

McCree looks down and away. Hanzo's hand rests on the bar top, his nails are ragged, uneven. Bruises on his knuckles, old ones, already fading.

There is the ghost of another on his cheek, somewhat obscured by the fluffy new-growth of beard.

"I call it dragon fire," McCree says and Genji tips his head in an 'I told you so' way. Silver fingers around the lip of the glass. Tossing the liquor back. McCree follows suit.

Hanzo's sits untouched.

"How did you find him?" McCree asks. Hanzo blushes, faintly. Tips of his ears going red.

"Yes, brother, do tell him," Genji says, teasing. "How did you find me?"

Hanzo glances between the two of them. He lifts the glass to his lips and drinks.

His throat moves with each swallow.

McCree distinctly wishes that this new, fledgling awkwardness did not exist. Genji, acting like nothing has changed in the years and years they have been parted, is like fresh air. But it is impossible to talk to Hanzo about all the feelings McCree has twisted up inside of him with Genji there.

"I..." Hanzo begins. Interrupting himself to cough into his fist. The dragon fire burning back, chugged down too carelessly. "The joke my brother is making is that I did not find him. He found me. And he will not let me hear the end of it," Hanzo snaps, pausing the glass across to Genji for a refill.

"It's the reason we are here actually, instead of on a boat back to Japan--"

"Home."

"Not my home, Hanzo. Not for a long time," Genji says. Stern. He refills Hanzo's glass, his own, McCree's. "We made a deal, you see, Jesse. Hanzo thought a letter would suffice, but I wanted to see you. Needed to. He needs to too, though I think he'll die before he admits it."

"Stop talking."

Genji rolls his eyes. Lifts his glass. "Where did I find you, brother?"

McCree studies the way Hanzo lifts his glass in suit. Hanzo's scowl. The glasses clink against one another. A begrudging toast. A history McCree has no part in.

"I had been arrested."

"What?" McCree asks. His shock is not feigned. The bruises on Hanzo's hands. The scar on his palm. Telling things.

"There was..." Hanzo frowns. "I had been part of an altercation and..."

"What Hanzo is trying to say, is he was in a bar fight. Spent three days in a cell for being disorderly with the guards. I happened to be in town, I happened to hear about it--"

"I was looking for you. It was not merely coincidence. I would have found you eventually."

"If it makes you feel better to say so," Genji says, shrugging. "Anyway. I sweet talked the sheriff." He shoots McCree a look, a sly little wink. "You know me and my golden tongue."

All too well.

McCree swallows. The dragon fire burns in his throat. Tangles with the off-kilter dizziness he's still feeling. Genji's mild-mannered way of acting isn't helping. Fifteen years.

But McCree can remember every instance of Genji's charm like it was yesterday.

"The deal for springing him, of course, was that we'd come see you," Genji continues.

"I'm sorry," McCree says.

"That shit again?" Genji shakes his head. "I am past it, Jesse. You are forgiven."

It feels almost like a brush off.

Atonement. What a disappointment.

"Hanzo tells me you found Gabriel. How is the old asshole?"

McCree shrugs. Twirls his empty cup on the counter. The sound of glass against wood is faint, but distracting.

"Different," McCree says. "Angry."

"He was always kinda angry," Genji says. "But then again," Genji tips his head, back and forth. His neck bracings are bright, the clicking of his joints a counterpoint to the sound McCree is making with the glass. "You and he always had sort of a different relationship. I think he liked you much more than me."

"I guess. He was like a spook," McCree says. "Like a completely different person. All the memories were still there, the connections, but it's like..."

"Hanzo told me he was cruel."

"He was a ghost," Hanzo says, "petty and vengeful. He should not have said those things he said about you." 

About McCree, about Genji. Hanzo does not specify. He is glaring down at his hands. The lines of his shoulders are stiff.

"He's taken up robbing again," McCree says. Leaning his chin in his wooden palm, tapping his human fingers against the wood of the bar. "But he seems to be following the same patterns as before."

Genji is staring at McCree's arm. He shakes his head, refocuses his gaze on McCree's face. "I don't plan on going after him. Gabriel Reyes is not one of my demons." He leans forward, across the bar. His fingers make a different sound against the hardwood, echoing little reverberations.

"May I see your arm, Jesse?"

McCree looks at Hanzo.

He doesn't know why.

Silently, slowly, he holds his arm out. Extending it across the bar. Genji's fingers, sliding along the seams of it. Down his forearm, across the joint of his wrist.

The workmanship of both prosthetics, here, touching, is remarkable. Similar, but different.

"Can you feel this?" Genji asks.

"Not really. It's like pressure, but that's it."

Hanzo is watching them. Silent.

Sullen.

McCree can't help the way his gaze is drawn back to Hanzo. Over and over. Drifting from Genji's fingers, to Hanzo's face and back.

"Can you?"

"Feel it?" Genji asks, smiling faintly. McCree doesn't need to see his face to hear the grin in the words. "No," Genji says. "I can't feel anything."

"Is it like that all over?"

"You asking me to strip, Jesse?"

McCree licks his lips. "I dunno. You don't have to make it sound so--"

"I am kidding," Genji says, gently. "Of course I will show you." He looks at Hanzo.

For a long moment the three of them just sit there.

Hanzo is frowning, scowling. McCree can place where some of the anger seems to be coming from. Hanzo, struggling with his duty and his selfish urges and his brother, whose goals and efforts are so starkly different than Hanzo's own.

McCree has that longing again, to reach across the space between them. To the right the thing that has gone wrong.

Like Hanzo in that dark basement.

The immediate space between them is nothing, but the divide Hanzo's abandonment has left is uncrossable. An unmanageable distance for just one man.

And McCree, alone, is just one man.

"I'm sorry," McCree says. Not to Genji. He's struggling for the right words. Hanzo is not looking at him.

Genji watches the interaction.

A silent witness.

Hanzo looks so pained; the corner of his eyes crinkled just slightly, his lip trapped between his teeth. Fingers digging into his own palm.

"Hanzo, please..."

"Jesse," Genji's tone. Gentle. Gentle. "Jesse, will you come upstairs with me?"

McCree looks over at Genji.

The softness of Genji's expression.

The same as all those years ago. Comforting. Soothing.

"I guess," McCree says. "I'm supposed to open up shop soon but I..."

"We don't have very long," Genji says. "I have taken up too much time already."

McCree stands, sways just slightly. Genji's hand, reaching across the bar, braces on McCree's elbow. Helps to steady him, somewhat. Hanzo makes no effort to move.

"He has already seen it," Genji says. He has moved around the bar, still holding McCree's elbow, his grip is tight. Head tipped into McCree's space. Voice barely a breath between them.

Intimate.

A secret.

McCree doesn't know why the way Genji says it upsets him like it does. Discomfort in the pit of his stomach.

Genji tugs on McCree's arm and McCree follows.

"Yer leaving?" McCree asks as they mount the stairs. The hurt in his voice is not faked. The apprehension in his stomach, leeching off the disorientation.

Genji looks at him. Paused at the top of the stairs. "I must. Our father..."

"Is a dying asshole."

Genji smiles. "Unlike Reyes though, he is my responsibility. I will attend him, say my goodbyes. And then I will return here. You will see me again, Jesse McCree."

Genji glances down the hall.

"Which room is yours?"

McCree gestures. Genji leads.

McCree closes the door behind them. Privacy.

Intimate.

McCree feels guilty even at the thought.

"And Hanzo?" McCree asks.

Genji sits on the edge of McCree's bed. "Hanzo what?"

"When you've said your goodbyes, when your father's dead. What will Hanzo do?"

Genji shrugs out of the overcoat he had been wearing. Lets it pool onto the bed behind him. McCree looks down at his feet.

"Knowing my brother as I do, I would say he will stay in Japan. He will argue with me to stay as well, but he will not try to keep me there."

The shirt joins the overcoat and McCree looks up.

Genji is breathing. His chest, all silver metal. His arms too.

McCree lets out the breath he didn't realize he was holding. Steps into Genji's space. Hand held out in front of himself. A question.

"You may touch, Jesse. I told you, I really don't feel anything."

Some of the silver plating along Genji's torso is raised, like little pieces of armor. Like a beetle. A mimic of what was once the musculature beneath it.

A masterpiece of craft. Delicate and inhuman. McCree's human finger catches on one of the plates and it shifts slightly beneath his touch.

Genji stands.

McCree does not back up or back off. Even when Genji's arms circle around his neck. Hands in McCree's hair, pulling his head against Genji's shoulder.

McCree brings his own arms up. Grips Genji's shoulders. Buries his face in deeper against the cool metal of Genji's new skin.

He is crying.

But they both pretend he is not.

"I didn't know," McCree says.

"It would not have changed anything if you did. I am used to it now."

"I..."

"If you apologize again, Jesse, I will kick your ass."

McCree chuckles. Pulls out of the embrace. Wipes the back of his hand across his eyes and under his nose, sniffing.

Genji is smiling at him, fondly.

"I did miss you," McCree says.

"And I you."

Genji moves his arms, stretches them above his head. Such a natural movement. He ruffles his own hair, the black so stark against the silver of his fingers.

"Can I ask you something?"

Genji expression shifts, eyebrows lifting. Dark arches above the light brown pools of his eyes. "You may ask me anything, Jesse?"

"Those letters...that you used to write."

Genji smiles, touches his lips. "You would like to know why I didn't tell you about them? Why I never told you about Hanzo at all?"

"I mean...I more wanted to," McCree swallows. "Wanted to know why you wrote what you wrote..."

Shock is not something that McCree is used to seeing written so plainly across Genji's features. But the echo of the old days is still there in the way Genji's mouth falls open, just a little. He catches himself, blinks, snaps his mouth shut.

"Hanzo actually told you about that? Shameless. My brother is shameless."

Genji shakes his head, chuckling. "Do you believe that I love you, Jesse McCree?" Genji asks. "That I loved you, all those years ago."

McCree rolls his shoulders. It is not an easy answer. "I think back then that...I was dumb, y'know? I mean, even at twenty-two I was just this stupid kid, right? And I didn't...I get it now, but back then the fact that you didn't want to fuck me, but could still love me just didn't make sense. I mean I loved Gabe, right? And if he'd ever asked, I woulda gotten down on my knees and sucked his cock, cuz that's what you do, when you love someone. Err. That's what I thought, back then at least."

"And if I asked you to fuck me, right now, what would you tell me?"

McCree doesn't know. His human hand clenches. "Are you asking?"

"I won't tell you if I'm kidding," Genji says, scowling. A parallel to Hanzo again. "Answer the question."

McCree rolls his shoulders, shuffles his feet. He doesn't know. All those years of longing.

'Eighteen years I have wanted you, Jesse McCree.'

"I don't...I don't think I could."

"Because of my body?"

"Because of your brother."

Genji nods. "Do you think it is strange, the things I told him?"

"Maybe a little," McCree makes a motion with his head. Considering. "Maybe a lot. I don't really know though. I ain't got no basis for comparison."

"Did he tell you that I caught him jerking off when we were little? Younger, not little. I was twelve so he must have been fifteen, maybe fourteen." Genji is still scowling.

"He didn't."

"He wouldn't. I walked into his room, I was looking for something, I don't even remember what, and there he was. Holding our kendo instructor's uniform to his face, moaning. Touching himself. It was the first time I ever..."

Genji tilts his head, studying the floor by McCree's feet.

"I had never seen him like that before. Not just turned on, wanton, I don't mean sexually. I mean it was the first time I had ever seen my brother look weak. Moaning a man's name and fisting his own dick. He had always been distant, lonesome. But here he was, open and honest and vulnerable.

"I think I loved him all the more for it. Hanzo was so perfect, growing up. This cold, elegant thing. But he was human after all. Queer. Deviant. When father found out, years later...I think Hanzo always suspected I had told. But I hadn't. I wouldn't have."

Genji turns, shakes his shirt out. Slips his arms into it. "Does it make sense now?"

"Not really."

"You wanted me. I knew you wanted me. And I loved you. And that weakness, that vulnerability, you reminded me of Hanzo. I wanted to tease him, but then I...I sort of lost control of it."

"Do remember the last man?"

"How could I forget?" Genji is smiling, fond. He touches McCree's wooden hand. Reverent, careful little touches. "What about him?"

"I dunno," McCree says. "I just..."

"Do you want to fuck my brother?"

Of course, is what McCree wants to say. But there is so much more to it than just that. "I want your brother to stay."

Genji rolls his eyes. "Lovesick fools the pair of you. Hanzo is too stubborn. He will not stay here with you, even if I go back to Japan without him. My brother has a perfection complex. He doesn't know how to be happy. How to let himself be happy."

"That's hardly fair."

"You were with him, what? A week? Less than? And he ran away from you at the first sign of becoming attached. My brother is a knot, a complicated, frustrating puzzle. I have known him my whole life, Jesse. Believe me on this."

"So what do I do?"

Genji sighs. Shrugs. A helpless little motion. "I do not know. For years I thought my letters would inspire him to come here, to leave Father's shadow and join me on our adventures. For years I thought..."

Genji crosses his arms. His shirt has only been buttoned half-way. His chest gleams in the light, so shiny and unnatural.

"Do you love him, Jesse?"

"Yes." No hesitation in it. Not even a little.

"Then maybe you will be able to reach him in a way I have not. Hanzo is stubborn and Hanzo is lonely and Hanzo is proud. But the only other time I have seen him as vulnerable as that time when I was twelve was when he was talking to me about you. About the way you would look at him. About the way you made him feel."

"We should probably go back to him," McCree says.

"My body makes him uncomfortable. He will not say it, but he does not need to. I think he does not know how to process what occurred. How things could be so different."

"It is a little shocking."

Genji gives McCree a look, flat and dry. Corners of his lips curling up just the slightest.

"I have missed you, Jesse McCree," he says.

McCree returns the smile. Loops his arm around Genji to pull him into another loose hug.

'I've missed you too.'

He doesn't say it.

He doesn't need to.

Genji's hand tightens in his shirt.

'I love you.'

Neither of them say it.

They already know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my friends. Update time.
> 
> Your comments keep me writing, so big big thanks to all of you!!!
> 
> Y'all know the drill, see you next chapter!!


	11. Chapter 11

Hanzo is drunk by the time Genji and McCree get back downstairs. Head on the bar, two empty bottles tipped next to him. Cactus wine.

The glasses the three of them had used have been pushed off to the side.

McCree doesn't have to imagine what Hanzo's lips would have looked like, wrapped around the bottle opening. Drinking away his frustration, his hurt.

Genji sighs, clicks his tongue.

Hanzo sits his head up as they approach, scowling.

"Are you done with this touching reunion?" He asks, slurring on slightly. Accent thicker with the liquor. His cheeks are red. "Can we go home now, brother?"

Genji says something in Japanese. McCree remembers enough from their time together to recognize Genji cursing.

Hanzo catches the words. Throws his own slurry of Japanese back.

Another history McCree has no part in.

Hanzo stands at whatever Genji says next. Hands spread wide on the counter. He looks so angry, brow furrowed, lips curling down into a hard frown.

He says something low and cutting. Twisted and jagged and under his breath.

Genji huffs, crosses his arms. Rolls his eyes. "I'm sorry you think that but it's just too bad," he says, snapping back to English, a seamless, vicious shift. "Because I'm not leaving with you drunk. Maybe you should have thought of that before raiding Jesse's bar, hmm?"

"I am not drunk," Hanzo clarifies. Sneering.

Very obviously drunk.

Leaning heavily against the hardwood of the counter. He has rolled his sleeves up. The lines of his arms are dangerous, corded things.

"I think we're lucky you're even conscious," McCree says, stepping between the Shimadas. Hands in the air.

Nice and easy he thinks.

This situation, the tempers both these men carry, is more dangerous than that mustached man could have ever hoped to have been.

Hanzo is glaring at him. McCree gestures to the bar.

"You drank all that by yourself there?"

"I know that you like to play dumb, McCree, but I do not see anyone else here."

McCree feels slightly wounded at that. A ridiculous little stab at his generally good-natured self. He frowns, glances over his shoulder at Genji, who simply shrugs.

"Ain't no call to be mean, Hanzo," McCree says, "I was just askin'. Cuz see, that's straight tequila and peyote, my friend, which means, yeah maybe you ain't really feelin' it yet, but give it a solid twenty and you will be."

Hanzo is already feeling it.

McCree can tell by his posture. Jutted forward the way he is. Arms holding most of his weight. The slope of him in total opposition to his stiff-backed sobriety.

Hanzo opens his mouth. Closes it. Rips his gaze away from McCree to glare at the bar top.

A petulance that does not fit with the Hanzo McCree has come to know. Two goddamn bottles of cactus juice.

"Why did you do this?" McCree asks, reaching out to touch Hanzo's shoulder. Hanzo pulls out of his grip, overbalances, takes two steps back instead of just pulling away.

"Why did you do it, brother?"

Hanzo's chest rises and falls with his breathing. The push of his pecs beneath his button up shirt is hypnotizing. He is breathing too heavily. Glaring at his own feet.

"Why do you even care," he asks. His hand is gripping the edge of the bar. White-knuckled. "You do not even want to come back to Japan with me."

"You don't really want to go back either, anija. Sore o zenin shite mo daijōbudesu. You are being a child."

"You do not get to say that to me." Hanzo points an accusing finger toward Genji. "Not you."

He looks at McCree. His expression is an open wound. Raw edges. His anger morphing into something else. The belligerent drunkenness crumbling.

"And you," Hanzo says. His finger is trembling. McCree cannot meet his gaze. "You..."

"Hanzo, we should go upstairs. You can rest this off."

Hanzo shakes his head. Lowers his hand. "We should never have come here."

Another piece of glass, driven through McCree's chest. Catching in his throat.

"You should not say that," Genji says. "Just because you are afraid."

"I am not afraid." Hanzo looks at McCree. "I am not."

"You should--"

"I am going upstairs," Hanzo announces. Squaring his shoulders. Swaying dangerously. He takes a step, almost falls; Genji is at his side in an instant, arm around his waist, shoulder wedged into his armpit. Holding him up.

"Which room?" Genji asks, looking at McCree.

Hanzo's eyes are closed. His cheeks are red, the tips of his ears.

"Take 'im ta mine. I gotta..."

"Get ready to open, I know." Genji says, nodding. "Will you walk us, at least? He is quite heavy."

McCree slips under Hanzo's other arm, holding him by the wrist. Flesh arm around Hanzo's waist.

Hanzo whines at the contact, flinches away. Eyebrows creasing. McCree holds him through it, doesn't let him pull very far away. Hanzo's eyes are still closed.

The peyote kicking in.

He walks with them, easy enough. Caged in between the two of them. Some sort of symbolism there. Like a trapped animal, gnawing off its own foot.

"I am sorry," Genji says at the door to McCree's room.

"You didn't do anything wrong."

"I am sorry for him, still."

Hanzo's head is lolling, brushing against McCree's cheek.

McCree steps back, lets Genji take Hanzo's full weight once more.

"The day I left, all those years ago--"

"The day he tried to kill you?"

Genji blinks. Looks down at Hanzo's bowed head. "So he told you that as well..." Genji looks back up. "He does these things. It is not an excuse but...he does not mean them, he regrets them, when they are done. And he wallows."

"I ain't mad at him."

"But you are hurt."

"It'll scab up. I know what that shit does to your head, 'specially someone as introverted as Hanzo. I'm not mad."

Genji nods, fingers against the door knob. Lingering.

"There's water, down the hall. If he...if he wakes up. Starts panickin'. The peyote can do that too."

Genji nods again. "I remember."

"I'll be back up, in a bit. I'll keep checkin' in."

Genji nods, a third time. Opens the door. Hanzo groans.

It whispers closed behind them.

McCree leans his weight against it. Gently. Balancing on his forearms, forehead pressed against the wood grain.

Shaking.

Shaken.

The hurt will ease and he will heal. But even knowing that doesn't make it any easier.

**

McCree doesn't get back to his room until much, much later. He intended to check in, as he had promised, but things just seem to keep coming up. Too many customers to ditch.

He locks the bar up, closing time.

Closes his eyes briefly as he twists the lock home.

Genji had not come down to get him.

Everything is probably fine.

McCree takes the stairs slowly. A feeling of dread, he doesn't know how to place it. Apprehension.

He knocks once, two brief raps on the door.

No one comes to answer.

Panic, in the back of McCree's throat. Fluttering distress.

He will open the door and the Shimadas will be gone again.

A fucking note on the bed.

Gone, gone, gone.

Leaving him abandoned again.

McCree holds the doorknob, trying to fight down the waves of nausea he feels. Memories of a month ago. His palm slides against the tin knob as he twists it.

The door opens soundlessly.

Gone, gone, gone.

The first thing McCree hears is Hanzo's shallow breathing.

Hanzo.

Not gone.

Fast asleep on the bed. Curled on his side under the blankets. Hair fanned out under his head. Snoring lightly.

McCree grips the doorframe.

Tries to get his wild heartbeat to calm. To beat back the needless panic he can still feel, threatening, behind his eyes.

Genji is curled in the armchair by the window. Head on his knees.

Also fast asleep.

McCree sighs.

He crosses the room, quietly as he can. Shakes Genji's shoulder lightly. Not new to the experience of waking Genji. Something nostalgic in the motion. Genji startles. Looks around, gripping McCree's wooden wrist where it is holding him.

"Easy there," McCree coos, thumb rubbing against the unnatural smoothness under him. The slide of Genji's shirt against metal. "It's just me."

Genji blinks again. Stretches.

"Time is it?" Genji asks. Sleep bleary still. His fingers running gently against McCree's wrist.

"Late. You want a bed, Genji? Got plenty to spare."

"Hanzo--"

"Is still passed out. Yer okay. I can watch him."

Genji yawns. "We have had a very long trip. The train ride was...stressful."

"You deserve the rest," McCree assures him, "there is a free room right across the hall."

Why Genji had not just curled up in bed with Hanzo, McCree does not ask. A line he supposes they do not cross. Maybe it makes sense, with their history. The oddities in their relationship are not for McCree to judge.

"Okay..." Genji says. Sniffing. He turns his head, pushes McCree back so he can stand. He looks over at Hanzo, smiles. The same way he had looked at McCree, so many hours ago. Indulgent and fond.

"You will watch him?"

McCree nods, squeezes Genji's shoulder. "Nothin's gonna happen."

Genji nods. Lingering still. Like he had outside the door earlier. Like he can't decide if he's doing the right thing.

"Maybe not nothing," Genji says, quietly. He leans over, nose against McCree's cheek, tracking through his beard. "You are too kind to him. Kill him with it, please," Genji whispers against McCree's skin.

And then Genji is gone.

Slipping out of the door McCree had left open on his arrival.

McCree looks down at Hanzo. So still and silent on the bed.

Too still, too silent.

His chest rises and falls, but the rhythm is off, just a little too slow for real sleep.

A terrible actor.

A liar, a fake.

The moonlight illuminates him on the bed. Silver in his hair, along his skin. His tattoo.

Hanzo's eyes are firmly shut, but McCree can see the flicker of them beneath his lids.

"How's you head?" McCree asks, gentle and quiet and calming.

Hanzo draws a sharp breath in through his nose. Muscles tensing.

And then he relaxes. Opens his eyes.

In the darkness, his eyes are endless. Unfathomable depths. McCree could drown in them, would gladly, if given the chance.

"I hate you and that devil brew," Hanzo says.

"Headache's a bitch, ain't she? I'd say I'm sorry, but," McCree licks his lips, "way I see it maybe you kinda deserve it."

"So you are mad."

"That's not the word you want, Hanzo. I was mad for the first day, maybe. Pissed as a goddamn hornet in a hat."

McCree shakes his head.

Hanzo rolls onto his back. Watching. Listening.

"And then I got sad, you know? I got...just...it was bad. Ugly. I pushed everyone away and then moped cuz I was alone. You think you're lonely, Hanzo? Growing up different. Sheltered and distant? You're an asshole, Hanzo. You make yourself lonely. You choose it." McCree bites his lip. He wants to sit at the foot of the bed, wants to touch Hanzo's ankles, run his hands up Hanzo's calves. Bury his face in Hanzo's crotch. Take back the words with gentle touches, with kisses.

But he won't.

These things need to be aired.

"I told you I was selfish," Hanzo says. Equally quite.

The two of them, breathing together in the dark. In the moonlight.

"Then why did you leave?"

Hanzo closes his eyes. "I was trying to do the right thing by my family."

"Don't lie to me. Don't lie to yourself. Neither of us deserve that."

"Are you..." Hanzo looks away. He is frowning, not his normal, neutral frown. True confusion. True sadness. His hands fisted in the comforter pooled around his waist.

Hanzo alone, only one man.

It's heartbreaking.

McCree's resolve breaks with his heart. He steps forward, touches Hanzo's leg, rubs the fabric of the blanket against it.

"I was afraid," Hanzo says. "Of the separation."

The admittance is like a physical thing. A weight he sheds. Hanzo melts as he says it, sinking further back into the bed. He won't meet McCree's gaze. Glaring at his own fists.

"You're the one choosin' to go back to Japan, Hanzo."

"It is more than just that though. The sooner I left, the less you would hurt. The less I would hurt. I am going back to Japan. I am. So better to let the two of us be done. To keep the precious moments I took, my selfish weakness, and move beyond it. Better for you. Better for me."

"You're an asshole."

"You have said that."

"Look at me."

Hanzo does. The set of his jaw is tight, stubborn.

"Do you want me, Hanzo?"

"I think we have covered sufficiently that I do. But I am going back to Japan. This is something bigger than just me."

"Alright, go back. And then, once dear old dad's buried, come back here. Stay here. With me."

Hanzo shakes his head. "To what end, Jesse McCree? I give up my family's business, my family's honor to come live with you here. What a happy couple the people will say. I'm sure."

His sarcasm is palpable.

"You care what people think? Cuz I can tell you right now, that I don't give even a half of a fuck. All I wanna do is make you happy."

Hanzo's expression breaks. Lip trembling just the slightest. Hard to be so hard when faced with McCree's earnest sincerity.

"And if it makes me happy to be alone?"

"Hanzo, I think we both know that's not true."

Hanzo sighs. The corners of his eyes are crinkled, mouth open just the littlest bit. Like looking at McCree physically pains him.

"What if I came with you to Japan. After your dad's..." McCree waves his hand, seems callous to say it twice in one night. "What if I came to you?"

"So we can both be shunned in the streets. Japan, even Hanamura, is too cruel. Too false. I do not think you could survive it. I could not ask it of you."

"So that leaves us what? No options."

"For the best we had split early. It is you, Jesse McCree, dragging this out."

"Because I don't much like the way you've just decided for the both of us, Hanzo Shimada."

"What do you want from me?" Hanzo snaps. He moves his legs from under McCree's hand. Draws them up to his chin. Arms folded over them. "What do you want me to say?"

"That you wanna try. I wanna try. Jesus, Hanzo, I would give up everything that I have here to try and achieve happiness with you. Are you listening to me? Do you hear me?

"I don't care what people say about us, or think. I want to grow old with you, I want share the rest of my life with you."

Hanzo's eyes are huge, liquid things. Hanzo swallows.

"Why me?"

"I don't know. I really don't. But from the moment I met you, I knew. You said you could never hate me. I could never hate you either. Okay? And I...I want all those things you believe about me to be true. All that shit Genji fed you.

"You make me want to be better, darlin'. You make me remember why life is worth it."

Hanzo looks down and away. He is smiling, McCree can see the corners of his lips, turning up under his beard.

Fighting against himself.

Charmed.

"You are sappy and overdramatic," Hanzo says.

"And you love me?"

Hanzo sighs.

"Yes, Jesse McCree, I love you."

McCree lets himself collapse onto the bed. Curling against Hanzo's side. Chin tucked against Hanzo's shoulder.

"Your beard itches," Hanzo says.

One man alone, can not cross the distance they have created. McCree rests his hand on Hanzo's. Traces his fingertip along Hanzo's knuckles.

Hanzo has his head tipped back, studying the ceiling. The column of his throat is an endless, graceful thing. His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows.

"I want to try," he says. "But I am scared. If it does not work..."

"It'll work."

"But if it does not work, then where will I be left? My family will not want me, my father's business will have moved on." Hanzo shakes his head, small little motion. His hair falls around his head in a dark wave.

"It'll work," McCree says again. "And Genji would never abandon you. Not even for me."

"For twenty years Genji left me, Jesse McCree. He left a boy and has grown into a man. Something like a man."

"Genji's a good person. Genji loves you."

"I do not know what to do. He has agreed to travel home with me, but our father...Genji's current form may very well kill him. A machine for a body. Father will not understand."

"He's had some additions, sure," McCree says, feeling defensive. At his side his prosthetic flinches. "But he's the same person. Same soul. Your brother is still in there, it doesn't matter what he looks like."

Hanzo sighs, turns his head to rest his chin in McCree's hair. Touches McCree's human wrist where it is draped across his torso.

"You are too kind. I've done nothing to deserve you."

"Well. It's gonna take a lot to get rid of me. I tend to get attached real easy so..."

"And you will not get bored of me?"

"Sugar, I don't think I could. We can work, so long as we're together and open and honest, we can figure it out." McCree licks his lips, tilts his head so Hanzo's forehead rests against his. Nose to nose. Kissing distance.

"Cuz I love you too, you know, Hanzo? And I think, maybe, that's mostly what it takes."

***  
When McCree awakens, hours later, he half expects that Hanzo will have vanished in the night. That the whole experience was some fever dream, a peyote induced hallucination.

But Hanzo is there, curled off to the side, blanket kicked down to his feet. Napping like a cat in a sunbeam.

McCree runs his flesh hand down Hanzo's spine. Chuckles at the way Hanzo arches into the touch, murmuring lightly in his sleep.

McCree rolls over, spoons up behind him. They had shared a few lazy kisses last night; unhurried, romantic things, but nothing further.

McCree kisses Hanzo's bare shoulder. Runs his mechanical hand through Hanzo's hair. Hanzo makes another noise at that, sleepy little whimpered Japanese.

It goes straight to McCree's dick. The morning erection he'd been valiantly ignoring.

He rolls his hips against Hanzo's ass, lazily. No rush in it. Hanzo is going back to Japan, there are a whole lot of details the two of them need to work out, but the morning light is just so pretty on Hanzo's skin. And Hanzo is pushing back against him just so, nose rubbing against the pillow, neck arching.

Waking up but not there yet.

McCree does it again, grinds himself up on Hanzo with a little more purpose.

"Am I interrupting something?" Genji asks.

McCree nearly jumps out of his skin.

"Jesus shit, Genji," he says, turning his head to glare at the man. Folded back up in the arm chair by the window. Not hidden in the least, had McCree not been preoccupied. "You gonna give a man a heart attack."

Genji is smiling. Laughing. "I am sorry, Jesse. I came to get Hanzo and...you two looked so peaceful, drooling on one another in your sleep. I could not bear to wake you. But then I thought...well, perhaps you would not appreciate the audience."

"Did I ever seem to mind, all those other times?"

"Are you asking me to watch you again? With my brother. Depraved." Genji's tone is dry, impossible to read.

"From what he's said, you're the one suggested in the first place," McCree says, grinning slightly. "But it's fine." He leans over, presses another kiss to Hanzo's shoulder, shaking him lightly. "Wake up, darlin', got us some company."

Hanzo makes a noise, rolling trill in the back of his throat.

"I am awake," he says, with his eyes still closed. "You are both noisy."

McCree makes a face, shoots a guilty look over to Genji. Genji rolls his eyes.

"The plan, brother?" Genji asks, crossing his arms. "Are we still in such a rush to leave?"

Hanzo's eyes blink open. He squints in the sunlight, turns his head away from it. Sits up with a mumbled protest.

"We..." he says, trailing off. Fingers touching McCree's wooden hand. Tracing the joints as McCree had done with his last night. "Can leave tomorrow," he says. A finality to it. "If Father dies, he dies. Our rushing will not change that."

McCree recognizes his words. Delivered with a softer tone. Genji nods once.

"Anata wa kono kyōdai o kōkai shite inai nodarou ka?"

"What is to regret?" Hanzo glances at McCree sidelong. Lingering. "And besides, this is McCree's chance to prove it, is it not? That life is worth living? All those whispered promises."

"We can make it work."

Hanzo licks his lips. Tongue sliding, pink and distracting along his flesh. He watches McCree watching him, McCree can tell by Hanzo's breathing. The slight catch of his chest on each in-drawn breath.

"Shall I leave the two of you?" Genji asks, grinning.

Hanzo glares at him. McCree smoothes his hand through Hanzo's hair. Distracting him before Hanzo can say something biting.

"There is," McCree begins to say, but Genji waves him off.

"I can keep myself entertained for a few hours at least." He's so smug. Smiling from ear to ear.

Hanzo is blushing as Genji leaves.

McCree isn't.

"All those years you put up with him, I don't know how you did it," Hanzo says. He rolls to the side, his back to McCree, covers his face with his hands.

McCree chuckles, follows Hanzo's motions so he's still spooned firmly behind him. Upper body half-draped across Hanzo's torso. Wooden fingers tangling in the ends of Hanzo's hair where it lies on the pillow.

With his human hand he brings Hanzo's bruised knuckles to his lips. Kisses each fading spot.

"You meant what you said?"

"Every word of it, sugar."

"Will you tell me again? How good you will make it?"

McCree flushes. Cock twitching in his slacks. Whispered promises between kisses. Dirty little nothings shared last night.

"Why don't I just show ya, huh?"

"I like your incessant talking," Hanzo says. His fingers drift from McCree's hand to his face. Touch the lips that had kissed him so tenderly, brush through McCree's facial hair. Tugging lightly on his beard.

"It's cuz you got a filthy mind."

"It is because you are simply lewd. Disgustingly American," Hanzo says. "Tell me."

"Which part, darlin'? The part about me suckin' ya off, huh?" McCree slips his wooden arm under Hanzo's head, wooden fingers against Hanzo's throat. "How I'm gonna open ya up with my fingers as I do it? You took me so well before, Hanzo, baby. Like your body was made for me." He rolls his hips. Useless friction between two layers of slacks.

McCree wishes he had stripped, but the mood had been so tender last night, he'd been loathe to break it over a little thing like sleeping in trousers.

Hanzo too.

Still in his pants.

McCree traces his fingers along Hanzo's waistline, feeling the tremble of Hanzo's skin beneath his fingertips. Hanzo's grip on his beard tightening.

Hanzo, rutting back against McCree's bulge. Desperate little moans from his throat.

"Like that, huh?" McCree says, practically purring. He nibbles at the junction of Hanzo's throat, between neck and ear. Can't help the rumble in his throat when Hanzo groans all pretty for him. "What about my cock, huh? God, you'd be so tight around me. And I'll make it good for you, Hanzo. Christ. It's like an itch right, deep down; can you imagine my cock against it? Fillin' ya up, so fuckin' deep."

He thinks of Hanzo. Fifteen. Some man's sweaty uniform pushed against his nose. Filthy.

Depraved.

McCree shudders. Gripping Hanzo's hip. The head of Hanzo's dick pressing against McCree's fingertips. Damp fabric against McCree's skin.

Hanzo, dripping wet already.

Not that McCree is in a much more dignified position.

"I'll clean you up after, too. Know what a stickler you are for that. Can you imagine it, Hanzo? All that slick just," he bites down again, humping against Hanzo in earnest now. Only half-aware of his own babbling, "just dripping out of you. Would you hold it in for me, Hanzo? Would you let me lick it out? God, Hanzo, I bet you'd even smell like me. Down in even that most intimate place. Would you let me?"

Hanzo is nodding, eyes squeezed shut. Holding McCree's face with one hand, his wooden wrist with the other. Desperate.

"You gotta tell me, baby."

"Ha--nngh. Yes." Hanzo slurs; eyes opening, fluttering. His lashes are so long. Delicate things.

McCree practically rips the buttons of Hanzo's trousers open, shifting his hips back only enough to pull the material down and away. They tangle at Hanzo's knees.

Enough room to work.

Hands on Hanzo's inner thighs, pushing them apart. Sweat-slicked skin beneath his palm. Knuckles brushing Hanzo's balls.

McCree rubs his thumb, dry, between Hanzo's cheeks, just to feel him shudder and moan.

"How d'ya want me?" McCree asks, voice gone rough, angled into Hanzo's ear.

"Talking."

"I meant--"

Hanzo kisses him, roughly, more teeth than lips. Crashing their mouths together painfully. McCree's lip gets caught between them, a bright line of pain. Hanzo's grip so tight in his beard.

"I just want you," Hanzo says, when they part. His English is halting, mumbled. "Inside. Please." Hanzo's thigh twitches, shin slipping over McCree's clothed hip. An extreme angle, it cannot be comfortable, but it lines them up nicely. McCree's cock, still covered, pushed up against his own hand where it teases Hanzo's ass. The material of Hanzo's trousers, pulled taut between his knees.

"I gotta grab the lube, darlin'. I don't wanna hurt you."

Hanzo lets out a sound, grating little groan. Mouth falling open, panting against McCree's wooden hand were it is still braced under his head.

"I'll only be a second," McCree promises, kissing Hanzo's neck again, slipping his hips out from under the clutch of Hanzo's leg.

The sight he leaves behind as he pulls himself off the bed is marvelous. Hanzo with his hair askew, Hanzo hard and dripping. So keyed up. McCree finds himself amazed, every time.

The old bottle of oil McCree digs out of his nightstand is hardly as romantic as he wishes it were. He tosses it on the bed and works on getting his pants undone.

Hanzo watches him as he does. One hand rubbing his stomach, fingers running the lines of his abs, the other fisted in the sheets.

His thighs have fallen closed.

"Is that new?" Hanzo asks, tipping his head. Tongue between his teeth, pushing at the corner of his lips.

He is looking at the scar.

McCree touches it, fingers smoothing over the raised, pink surface. He has other scars, old and white and faded.

"Not that new."

"I do not remember it." Hanzo sits up, knees gathered under him. Leans forward to reach between them. His fingers are cool against McCree's overheated skin. An itch of blunt feeling in the dead nerves.

McCree's curls his prosthetic fingers in Hanzo's hair.

"It was after."

"It is healing?"

"It don't hurt, if that's what you mean."

Hanzo swallows. Looks up. His eyes, his lashes, his throat. The grown out hair along his chin and jaw. Just a little too unkempt.

"You were right, we shoulda killed them."

"I'm sorry," Hanzo says.

"Don't be. I told you, it don't hurt."

Hanzo kisses the skin, framed by his hands. Reverent and slow. "I am sorry for...for not being here."

"Well," McCree says, shaking just the slightest when Hanzo strokes his cock. "That don't hurt much either, now. Healed up some. You being here now helps."

Hanzo reaches down, rolls the jar of oil between his palms. "I do want you, Jesse McCree."

"I never doubted that."

Hanzo smiles, licks his lips. Bold things. Almost playful. "That is because you are full of yourself."

McCree chuckles. Takes the bottle when Hanzo presses it into his hands. Opens it.

Amazed by how casual he makes the gesture of opening it seem.

He can still feel the thrum of lust under his skin. The pounding, pulsating need; from not only his cock, but from his muscles, his spine, his thighs.

But it is different.

Easy.

This man is different.

McCree dips his fingers into the lube. The slick is cool and sticky against his skin.

"How ya want me?"

"All ways," Hanzo says. Almost mildly.

Different.

This man has always been different.

"Like the first time, Jesse McCree."

McCree's fingers leave a trail of oil and the slide over Hanzo's hip, squeezing the skin below his grip for good measure once before he leans in to whisper:

"Then roll over for me."

Hanzo does.

Obedient.

Bent at the knee. Feet dangling off the edge of the bed. Thighs spread this time.

McCree braces his wooden hand on Hanzo's lower back, thumbs the dimples above his ass. Watching Hanzo's muscles jump and contract.

He pushes his flesh finger in. Slowly, drawing out. Just the tip before drawing it back. Under the pretense of spreading the oil, but it's really just so McCree can watch in fascination as Hanzo's body opens for him. Around him.

Heat and slick and fluttering softness.

Different. Different.

So very different.

This man beneath him.

Gasping and arching and clutching at the spread below him.

Hanzo takes it so well.

McCree tells him so. Leans over to whisper it against Hanzo's spine. Nipping the sweaty flesh beneath his lips. Hanzo's shoulders rippling, solid, appealing muscle as he hold himself up. Thrusts back against McCree's fingers.

"Greedy," McCree murmurs. Kissing a path up Hanzo's back to his neck. "Ready for another one?"

"Yes," Hanzo nods. Drops his shoulders to bracket his head between his arms as McCree pushes the second finger against him and in.

Hanzo shudders below him.

"That's perfect, Hanzo. God. So perfect."

The praise makes Hanzo keen.

A third finger has him whimpering again. Twisting back against McCree's fist as he scissors his fingers. Hanzo isn't really loud, but his litany of muffled Japanese curses is constant.

Blending with the wet sounds of McCree's fingers.

Harmonious, in a way.

McCree runs his wooden hand down Hanzo's arm. Palm against the back of Hanzo's hand, interlacing their fingers.

"Are you ready for me, Hanzo?" he asks. Mostly because it is polite to.

And not at all because the way Hanzo tosses his head and moans and nods is arousing.

McCree squeezes the base of his cock as he lines up. Grits his teeth as he pushes into Hanzo's body.

Tight heat.

The way has been slicked by the oil, but it's still a fight.

Hanzo's entrance twitching against the head of McCree's dick. The spasms of his flesh threatening to end McCree's job right there.

Vulnerable.

McCree thinks about other things, or tries really hard to. The drunk patrons he serves, sweaty, dusty, nasty men.

Hanzo moans out McCree's name. Arches his back so McCree slides deeper.

Practically draped across Hanzo as it is. Chest hair rubbing against Hanzo's spine.

"You're so good, Hanzo," McCree is mumbling, teeth scratching against Hanzo's shoulder. Babbling, really. Lost in it. Hips humping against Hanzo's ass.

Deeper, deeper.

Just a little deeper.

Until there's nowhere left to go.

As deep as he can get. Bent nearly double over Hanzo's back.

Gasping and panting against the skin of Hanzo's neck. Hanzo's hair sticking to his lips.

"Perfect, darlin'. Fuckin'. Good fuckin' Christ. You feel so wonderful, Hanzo. So good and tight. Made for me. Unnnng God."

And Hanzo.

Beneath him.

Breathing his name.

"Jesse. Jesse. You can move. Jesse. Please. Suk...I am. I am okay. Jesse."

McCree rolls his hips, tilting them back until he feels the tip of his cock catch on Hanzo's rim. Pushing back in just as slow. Smooth, powerful thrusts.

Hanzo keens, voice catching on the next rush of words. The hand not pinned by McCree's working under himself to pull at his own cock.

"Jesse, yes. Fuck. Suki da...nng. Jesse. Da yo. Jesse. I...cannot."

"I ain't gonna last either," McCree says, increasing the pace. Puffing over the words. Just a little out of breath, overwhelmed by the feeling of Hanzo clenching around him.

The warmth in the pit of his stomach.

"Come for me, Hanzo," he says. Grunting. "I wanna see it this time."

Hanzo's hand flips in his, fingers tightening sporadically against the wood. McCree adjusts his flesh hand on Hanzo's hip. Grip tight enough to bruise.

One more layer of sensation.

Hanzo grunts. A hiccup-like sob ripped from his throat.

McCree's name and more mangled Japanese.

His muscles tense.

Absolute stillness as he breaches that place. Almost too tight around McCree's cock. Then he is shaking and twitching and groaning into the bed, eyes closed, hair around his head like a nest. Hips pulsating against McCree's unconsciously. Chasing the last echoes of his orgasm.

Hanzo's body milks McCree's orgasm from him.

Drags it out of him. Inevitable, despite how McCree fights to stay above it. Desperate to give Hanzo those last, overwhelming moments of pleasure.

But it's too much.

McCree bows his head against Hanzo's back as his hips slam forward. Deep. So deep.

Hanzo opening below him.

Made for him.

Different than all those other times.

Better.

This man is different.

McCree comes.

Wordless. Panting into Hanzo's damp skin. Forehead sliding against Hanzo's neck, drenched with his own sweat.

But all that is beyond him.

Meaningless details.

Hanzo's voice brings him to.

Seconds later, minutes.

"Ī nada yo, Jesse. Daijōbu. Daijōbu." So quiet it almost isn't there. Whispered under Hanzo's breath.

Not the first time McCree has heard the words.

An echo.

But different.

"What does that mean?"

Hanzo sighs, rolls his shoulders under McCree's weight. Sagging against the bed.

"It means I am okay. Are you okay?"

"Peachy keen."

"So we are okay, then."

McCree nods. Smiles. Curling slow and lazy across his lips. Damp hair against Hanzo's neck.

"When are you leaving?" It has to be asked. McCree dreads breaking this moment, but he has to know.

"Soon. Tonight. Tomorrow."

"But you will write me?"

"I will write you." Hanzo moves. McCree lets his weight get pushed to the side, landing on his back. Hanzo is quick to cuddle back in. Head on McCree's chest. Hair tickling McCree's chin. McCree's wooden arm around his shoulder. "And we will be okay?"

"You'll come home to me?"

"Home," Hanzo says. Swallowing around the word. "I will come home to you. That is a promise, Jesse McCree. Do you promise that we will be okay?"

An impossible thing to predict.

A cruelty to promise it.

But God, McCree wants it to be true. With every fiber of his being.

And maybe, just maybe that will be enough.

"I promise," McCree says.

Hanzo hums. Sighs. Eyes closing.

Different, different.

This man is different.

"Then we are okay," Hanzo says.

And he's right. They are.

It will be enough.

Because they are okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There it is, folks.
> 
> I really had no idea what I was doing when I started this out. Like it was supposed to be a smutty one shot, but then the smut got way-laid, and then the smut came back but then there was this plot developing and...whew. Here we are 11 chapters later.
> 
> Thank you thank you thank you for all of you who stuck with me through this ridiculous ride. Hope it was a good one!
> 
> I have a bunch of other pieces in the works for this pairing. So, if you liked this, never fear, McHell has hardly abandoned me.
> 
> I'll see you guys around!
> 
> Thank you all again, so much! Your encouragements and kudos and tumblr messages and love have kept me inspired!!
> 
> Come scream at me on tumblr @vrunkas or let me know any thoughts, needed tags, mistakes etc in the comments here
> 
> See ya next time

**Author's Note:**

> Did you make it? Will there be more???? Yes probably. I stopped there because I'm literally writing this at work. So more chapters inc. smut inc. actual plot sense uhhhh probably not. Anyway see you around.
> 
> Visit me http://vrunkas.tumblr.com to scream or whatever if you want


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